Second Sight (Prescience Series Book 1)

by Denise Moncrief

The ease with which she opened the trunk surprised her. Inside she found what were surely Sheldon’s personal, most sentimental mementos, evidence that the man had once had more than this Spartan life. She opened a legal-sized mailing envelope and spilled pictures out onto the bare mattress. Examining first one and then another, she recognized faces. Quite a few of them were pictures of Sheldon and a woman she identified as her Great Aunt Imogene when they were younger, maybe in the twenties. There was a collection of photographs of Sheldon and a woman with two small children. His wife and children? She squinted at the photos in the dim light. The children resembled Jeri as a child. One of them, the boy, was surely Jackson. There was a daughter, then. Was she still alive? Where was she?

  The last few pictures she studied were of Jackson with Darlene Bowman, the woman she’d known as her aunt. The two of them didn’t seem happy together. It was obvious they had a strong bond, but there was something slightly unnerving about the way they clung to each other. Maybe she was reading too much into the photograph, but the way they wrapped their arms around each other’s waist Jeri got the impression their relationship was more psychotic than romantic.

  Overwhelming resentment weakened her knees, and she toppled onto the grimy mattress. She pulled the photos of her biological parents to her chest, curled up into a ball, and yelled into the mattress. “Why did you do this to me?”

  For a moment, she wished she’d never been born, and then, she promptly discarded the thought. Of course, she was glad to be alive. Pain was as much a part of life as joy. It meant she wasn’t numb. To her, it seemed having no feeling was worse than feeling too much.

  A lump under the mattress gouged into her side. She rolled and searched beneath the edge. When she touched something solid and heavy, a zing of electricity shot through her arm. She pulled a shallow bowl from beneath the mattress with a jerk. Her elbow scraped the rough wall, and the sting of an abrasion heated her skin. She dropped the object and pulled her arm in front of her to inspect the fresh wound. A drop of blood fell onto the carved metal bowl.

  The edges of her vision blurred. The room tilted and swayed. The beam from her flashlight spluttered and died. Her head grew heavy, too heavy to hold up. She closed her eyes, just for a moment.

  When her eyes popped open again, a vision lingered in her mind, vivid and crisp. What she had seen pushed her into action. The truth screamed through her mind. Nick was in trouble.

  ****

  Dylan Hunter pressed a blood-soaked rag against Nick’s upper arm while the far-off wail of a siren grew louder with each passing second.

  “I guess you were hoping I’d bleed to death and stop harassing you?” Nick’s attempt at sick humor came off sounding ridiculous.

  Hunter muttered his response. “Don’t be stupid.”

  From out of nowhere, Jerilyn filled Nick’s vision and came into focus. Was he hallucinating? Surely, not. His wound was superficial, at the worst. Why would he see things or people that weren’t there?

  Nick almost melted with relief that she had found him. So she had taken a time out from their hard-to-define relationship instead of running away from him forever. He groaned and rasped his question through a dry mouth. “What are you doing here?”

  Fear for him registered all over her face. He tried to sit up, but his struggle was useless. The gunshot wound might be superficial, but Wakefield had gotten in some hard punches before they had struggled over Nick’s gun. He wasn’t going to be able to get up and chase the bad guys any time soon. This was real life, not some damn made-for-TV cop drama. How long would he have to be out recuperating?

  He glanced around the area, wanting to memorize everything before emergency personnel contaminated the scene and hauled him off to the hospital. He groaned again. Wakefield had taken his service weapon. Ed was going to kill him if the pain didn’t get to him first.

  Jeri hit the ground next to him on her knees. “Is it bad?”

  Her eyes pleaded with him to be all right, to say he wasn’t dying. He flinched when she placed a hand on his cheek. Nick didn’t want her to see him this way. More than that, he didn’t want her to see his future…if she could indeed see his future…especially if his future didn’t include her.

  Nick couldn’t form any words past the cotton that clogged his throat.

  Hunter busted into their conversation and answered for him. “Just a flesh wound. It’s not serious. So who are you?”

  He wanted to roll his eyes at Hunter for trivializing his injury. All gunshot wounds should be taken seriously. Jeri ignored the guy and his subtle sarcasm. Nick was proud of her for that.

  She leaned closer to him and whispered. “I had a vision.”

  His heart raced. He didn’t want her to say anything foolish in front of Dylan Hunter and Sophia Cannon, but he wanted to know what she’d seen. “About me?”

  A tear glistened on the edge of her lower eyelid.

  “What did you see?” He hated asking the question in front of the others, but he had to know.

  Hunter stared across him at Jeri with a puzzled frown on his face. He wished Jeri would take over the pressure to his wound and Hunter would back off and leave them alone, but Hunter seemed to be absorbing every word they said.

  “I saw you fighting with a man. Then you fell. I knew you were hurt.” She shuddered. “It’s all fuzzy. I don’t know how I got here.”

  He licked his lips. “You can’t remember? Like last time?”

  She sniffed back a sob and shook her head.

  The sirens drew nearer.

  Sophia interrupted them. Nick had almost forgotten she was there.

  “I’ve seen you before. At the bar in the Quarter. Are you a friend of Brandon Wakefield?”

  There was a definite note of accusation in Sophia’s question. How had she made that leap?

  Jeri lifted her gaze to meet Sophia’s, and sympathy flashed in her turquoise blue eyes rather than defensiveness or irritation. “You mean the man that was bothering you? No. I’ve never met him. But I couldn’t let you leave with him. If you had, you wouldn’t be…” She glanced at Nick. “I’m glad Nick stopped him.”

  He had to deal with the situation before Hunter and Sophia asked too many questions, and he hoped Jeri would understand the harsh stance he was taking with her. Oh hell, why should she now? She hadn’t in the past. She’d probably get mad and huff off again. No matter. He had to do what he had to do to protect her from revealing herself to strangers, especially since he was probably going to be incapacitated for a while.

  “Jerilyn, this is serious. You can’t just make this stuff up.”

  She fell back from him. “You know I’m not making this up. How else would I know to come here if I was just making it up? And don’t call me Jerilyn.”

  He searched his mind for the right response, one that would play the part of a cop being firm with a person of interest. “You have some explaining to do.” He acted like he didn’t believe her nonsense, but he was trying to nonverbally warn her to tone it down while at the same time let her know he was taking her seriously.

  The hurt expression on her face informed him that he had missed the mark. She hadn’t read him at all. Her face flushed with anger and dismay.

  Jeri jumped to her feet and backed away from him just as the emergency vehicles screamed to a halt in the adjacent parking lot. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  Wait! No! Was she telling him a final goodbye? That’s not what he wanted. He couldn’t push the right words past his dry lips.

  As she rushed away, Nick tried one more time to communicate to her. His words sounded garbled to him. Had she understood what he’d said?

  It didn’t appear that she had.

  Jeri stopped and twisted on her heel. “Some things are out of your control, detective. The sooner you learn that lesson of life, the better off you’ll be.”

  She was gone as quickly as she had appeared. He groaned, both from the pain in his shoulder and the frustration of watching her walk away. Would he
ever see her again?

  Chapter Twenty

  Nick hadn’t wanted an overnight stay in the hospital; he had wanted the ER doc to patch him up and send him on his merry way. Of course, the fact that the doc had to dig the bullet out of his muscle might have had something to do with the two times Nick had passed out. Once he’d hit the floor for the second time, the doc thought he might need to be observed for twenty-four hours, just to make sure he wasn’t going to pass out again.

  Sometime during the scuffle with Brandon Wakefield, Nick had lost his cell phone. Petrie had called him three times on the phone in his hospital room. Each time his partner had called, Nick’s blood pressure had elevated just a little bit more. The nurses kept sucking their teeth and shaking the heads at him, telling him he needed to relax and remain calm. How was he going to remain calm when he couldn’t be out there searching for Wakefield?

  A minute before Ed arrived, a nurse had entered his room and removed the phone. She told Nick that his boss had overruled his objections to its removal. He had known what was coming at him and had braced himself for the onslaught of Ed Moreau. Sure enough, Ed had stormed into his hospital room with all the force of a Cat 5 hurricane.

  Ed shook his beefy finger at Nick. “You need some rest.”

  That, he did. Ed would get no argument from Nick, but Nick had things to do, and rest wasn’t an option.

  “Petrie can work the Ardoin case until you can get back to work.” Ed narrowed his eyes, and his bushy eyebrows drew together into Ed’s infamous don’t-even-argue-with-me frown. “You’re taking a few days off.”

  “I don’t have time—”

  Ed growled.

  Nick raised his hand in surrender and regretted the impulsive action. The stupid IV line had lodged beneath his butt, and the sudden movement had yanked on the needle in his hand. He winced and inspected the stick site.

  Ed plopped into the chair in the corner and dragged himself to the edge of the bed. “So what were you doing at Dylan Hunter’s apartment?”

  The questions were inevitable. Ed would pick at the truth with the precision of needle-nosed pliers.

  “I was waiting for Brandon Wakefield to show up…and he did.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, then exhaled, allowing his irritation to leave him slowly. “I almost had him too.”

  “He’s in the wind.”

  Ed was a man of few words. If Brandon was in the wind, then Ed had done everything he could to locate the guy.

  “Why is Petrie going through hours and hours of CCTV footage?”

  Nick waited a moment for the nausea to recede. “I think Jackson Deville has been in Jerilyn’s apartment.”

  “And where is the girl?”

  As far as Nick knew, Jeri was also in the wind.

  “She… She’s in town… I just don’t know where. She might be at the apartment, and she might not. She isn’t speaking to me right now.” That was hard to admit. “At least, I don’t think she is. I lost my phone. She might have called me…”

  The scowl on Ed’s face would have scared the most hardened criminal. “She has your personal cell phone number?”

  “She used to. She might not anymore. Jeri… She destroyed her phone so her father couldn’t ping it and find her. I don’t know if she’s gotten a new phone or not. She’s not speaking to me.” Damn, he’d said that already. The drugs were making his thinking fuzzy.

  Ed studied him and then burst forth with his opinion. “That hurts your feelings, doesn’t it?”

  Nick spluttered his reaction. “Aw, come on, Ed.”

  “You’ve spent so much time doing favors for Charlotte Soileau and panting for this girl that you haven’t taken care of business. I thought I told you to work this case like a serial killing. Didn’t I?”

  Nick didn’t care for Ed’s critical tone. “There’s only been one murder, boss. That’s hardly serial.”

  “This case has all the markings.”

  Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t.

  Ed rose to his feet. “You’d better hope there isn’t another murder.”

  An ominous dread swept across Nick’s consciousness. There would be other murders. Jeri had said so.

  Ed wasn’t done chewing on him. “How do you know Jackson Deville is the killer? Do you have eyewitness statements? Do you have a fingerprint match? Do you have anything at all to tie him to the victim or the murder scene except the fact that he claims he found her body?”

  No, he didn’t. Nothing solid that he could present to a prosecutor.

  “That’s what I thought. This is still just a theory, isn’t it?” Ed rose to his feet. “Get some rest and get back to it. Petrie can’t find his butt with both his hands.”

  Nick smiled and defended his partner. “He has a lot to learn, but he’s coming along.”

  Ed returned the smile. “Then, keep him in the loop. It doesn’t look good for him when he can’t tell me where you’re at or what you’re doing or why you have him doing things.”

  “Is he my keeper?”

  A glimmer lit Ed’s dark eyes. “Isn’t that what a junior partner is for? That and to do all the tasks the senior doesn’t want to do?”

  Ed was right. That’s exactly how Nick used Petrie’s developing abilities.

  “Take some time off, but stay on top of things. Okay? Then get back on the job. You have two bad guys in the wind. You need to catch both of these guys before they do some damage to someone. You can ride a desk for a while, but make sure Petrie knows what to do while you’re incapacitated. Ardoin is still your case.”

  Incapacitated? Wasn’t that a big word for Ed?

  ****

  It hadn’t been easy getting his room number out of information, but Jeri had managed to shed a few tears in order to accomplish her mission. She darted into an open doorway when she saw a man emerge from his room. She stayed out of sight and waited for the man to pass. In another minute, she was standing next to Nick’s bed.

  He closed his eyes and opened them again. “Jeri?”

  She smirked at him. “You’re not dreaming.”

  He slipped his hand out from under the covers and reached for her hand. She only hesitated half a second before she covered his hand with hers.

  “Are you okay?”

  “You’ve been shot, and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

  He stared at her, and it seemed like forever before he spoke again, their gazes locked on each other.

  “The painkillers they have me on make me loopy.” His lop-sided grin was kind of cute. “So…your vision came true.”

  Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “No. That…what I saw…that hasn’t happened it.”

  “Whatdaya mean? I’ve been shot. Just like you said I’d be.”

  “Nothing about what happened last night matched my vision. You’re going to get hurt much worse.” She paused and let a bit of hope escape her. “Unless I can do something to change that.”

  He sucked in a long breath and blew it back out. “How can you stop it from happening? If it’s going to happen?”

  The way he worded his questions… Did he believe her gift was real? Finally?

  “I have to find out how this works. Right now, it’s just a feeling I have, but I feel…. I know there is more to my gift than just seeing the future.” She squeezed his hand. “I don’t want to get you in any more trouble, Nick. I want to help you find Alison’s killer, not make things more difficult for you. I don’t want to let you down.”

  His brow wrinkled with a deep frown. “What you’re talking about…that could be dangerous.”

  “If I’m not careful, this could pull me toward the dark. I don’t want to go there.” She shuddered. “I don’t want to make a mistake. I don’t want to harm anyone because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Did he sense what she was about to say to him?

  Sadness filled his eyes. “So when are you leaving?”

  So he did get it.

  “If this passes down from generation to generation
, I have to find out how it started. I have to find out how it works. I’m going back to see Imogene. I think she knows.”

  She pulled a pay-as-you-go phone from her pocket and wiggled it at him. “I’ll call you when I’m coming home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yeah, I think this is home now.”

  “I lost my phone in the fight.”

  “Oh. Then…I can call you at work, can’t I? They’ll put me through, won’t they?”

  He quirked one side of his mouth. “Yeah, they will. If they don’t, then… Just come by my apartment and wait for me until I come home.”

  “I don’t know where you live.”

  He gave her the address, and she made sure she had it in her contacts.

  She stuffed a wadded piece of paper in Nick’s hand. “You’re going to need this.”

  “What’s this?”

  She licked her lips. He needed to follow the lead she was giving him. Would he? Or would he blow her off?

  “The names of his other victims. You have to warn them.”

  A combination of sadness and weariness flashed in his eyes and made the half-smile drop off his face. “How am I gonna do that, Jeri? Oh hi, Jane Doe. This is a cop in New Orleans. I’m calling to warn you that someone is going to kill you. How am I supposed to have that conversation with potential victims without starting a panic?”

  She kind of sort of got his point. One of them would become hysterical. One of them would talk to the press.

  “How long do I have before someone gets killed again?”

  Grief coursed through her. “He could have already killed again. I hope he hasn’t. I pray he hasn’t. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to stop him. You understand, don’t you? I have to find out how to use my gift. I can’t do that here. I would stay…if you asked me too. At least until you were out of the hospital…” She tried a warm smile, but it wobbled on her lips. “But I think we’re running out of time. So…I have to do this. When I know what I need to know, I’ll come back. I promise.”

  Was that an I’ll-miss-you look on his face? He returned her sad smile. “Take care of yourself.”

  Jeri knew what he meant. She wasn’t safe until she was no longer a threat to Jackson Deville. “I’ll be looking over my shoulder. And you should too.”