The Phoenix Agency_Blind Spot

by Casey Hagen

Lily sipped and fought tears that threatened, telling herself her weak moment was just because of exhaustion. “They mocked me in there. They treated me like circus side-show.”

  Jasmine wrapped and arm around her. “They’re a bunch of juvenile pricks. I find it terrifying that they’re in charge of this case at all.”

  “They acted like eleven-year-olds on the playground,” Lily said as she rolled the stem of her wineglass between her fingers.

  “The world doesn’t understand us. Hell, there are days I don’t understand us,” Jasmine said, muttering the last part.

  Jasmine struggled with her own gift, claircognizance. She lived a life free of visions, but her gut feelings were another matter entirely. She instinctually knew things, but had no way of explaining how she knew them. At least Lily could prove her visions by being right. Jasmine had one argument only, “I just know.”

  That’s how she’d known to take the road trip the week before to see Lily in the first place. She just knew, something was wrong and knew it was Lily, so she’d packed a bag and jumped in her car.

  Lily wouldn’t be surprised if Sage and Ivy had an inkling, too, considering they each had gifts of their own.

  And their gifts were Lily’s fault.

  Ever since that day, all those years ago, when she sat down with her three best friends and emulated what her boy had done in his vision making them blood sisters forever, Jasmine, Sage, and Ivy all had some sort of power. A power that seemed to have come from Lily.

  “Stop it,” Jasmine said. She tipped her head back resting it on the back of the couch and closed her eyes.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Lily said.

  “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “Shouldn’t I have?” Lily said. After all, she had visions. If only she had control over which visions flashed before her.

  “You were ten. Your job was to know about pop music, Barbie dolls, and board games,” Jasmine said with an air of confidence. Her voice never wavered, listing out the talismans of their childhood.

  “Barbie dolls? I’m pretty sure we were over those by eight.”

  Jasmine rolled her head to look at Lily. “You think?” She scrunched up her nose as if calculating the years.

  “Yes, you had started ripping their heads off and gluing them onto their own hands. Always their left hands,” Lily said with a shake of her head.

  “That’s sick shit.”

  Lily laughed as a bit of the day drifted into oblivion. Whether the wine had chased it away or her own personal warrior, Jasmine, she’d likely never know.

  “We had a few club meetings about it. Considered kicking you out of a group and everything.”

  “Catty bitches,” Jasmine said and laughed. “Barbie’s were shit role models anyway.”

  The doorbell rang followed by several hard raps on the door. Lily’s and Jasmine’s eyes met, and before Lily could even consider getting up, Jasmine had propelled her six-foot-tall frame off the couch and walked barefoot to the door.

  She kept her hand on the knob, but didn’t open the door. “Who is it and what do you want?”

  “I’m here investigating the kidnapping of Mara Wilkins. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Jasmine heaved a sigh and opened the door. “Make it quick.”

  “It’ll take as long as it’s going to take, Ms. Ashmore.”

  Lily couldn’t see the man, at least not yet, but something about that voice had her sitting up ramrod straight.

  “I’m not Ms. Ashmore, and you’ll make it quick or you can walk right back out that door.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Just consider me Lily’s bodyguard.”

  “Ahh, so you’re playing the resident pitbull?”

  “Nice try, but I’m immune to your insults,” Jasmine replied. Judging by the disinterest in her tone, she spoke the truth.

  Lily stood as they rounded the corner into the living room. The minute she spotted him the wine glass slipped from her fingers and shattered on the coffee table.

  It was him. She’d been seeing him in her visions for over two decades.

  Her boy.

  Wine ran off the edge and dropped down onto the carpet, and her bare foot. “Shoot.” She jolted away from the liquid and stepped on a piece of glass, gasping when the edge sliced into the arch of her foot.

  She dropped onto the couch and grabbed her foot.

  “Are you okay?” Jasmine asked rushing over to her.

  Lily nodded, picked up her foot, and flinched, afraid to look at what she had done.

  “Here let me see,” Jasmine said taking Lily’s foot. She turned it over and her forehead wrinkled at the sight. “Oh, Lil.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It will be, honey. Let’s get you to the sink and get this taken out. Can you walk?”

  “I can hobble.” Lily pushed up, humiliation causing her to flush red from the roots of her hair right down to her bloodied foot. She took a step, just using the tip of her toes…and got blood on the carpet.

  Her boy stood there, just watching her. Seeing right through her it seemed. His examination left her edgy and self-conscious.

  “We need to wrap it. I’m getting blood on the floor.”

  “Give me a minute, I’ll grab something,” Jasmine said.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” her boy muttered dropping his bag by her easy chair. He marched up to her, anger seeping from his bones, and in one swoop, he had her in his arms, with one around her back and the other under her knees. “Where to?”

  “Put me down,” Lily said pushing against his chest.

  “No.”

  “You don’t get to march into my house and manhandle me.”

  “You want to bleed all over your new carpet?”

  “How do you know it’s new?” She asked jutting out her chin.

  “I have eyes,” he said turning toward the back of the house as if he owned the place and knew right where to take her.

  She looped her arm around his neck and told herself it was just to make sure he didn’t drop her. Basically, she lied to herself. If she were completely honest, she’d admit that his arms held her so securely that she couldn’t imagine ever falling again.

  He set her on the counter in just the right position that her foot dangled over the sink.

  “You’ve got a first aid kit?”

  “Yes, in the hall linen closet upstairs,” she said as she flinched at the burning sensation that had started in her foot.

  “I’m on it,” Jasmine said heading in the direction of the stairs at a jog.

  She searched his face and fought a deep sense of disappointment. She knew from her visions that he had gone into the military. He’d excelled as a marine and moved up the ranks quickly, but she’d never seen this.

  And that sounded completely insane, since she’d never met him. Didn’t matter, she knew him. She’d seen so many of his most important moments, some she wished she had never seen, like his prom and what he did after.

  Irritated her mind even went there, she gave him what for. “I already answered every question under the sun at the police station. I don’t know what y’all possibly forgot to ask when I was there, but I’d appreciate it if you’d get your act together so you can leave me the hell alone.”

  “I’m not with the police,” he said after flipping on the cold water and holding her foot under the stream.

  Lily yanked her foot back and shrunk away from him. “Then who the hell are you?”

  “Mason Devlin, with the Alegra division of The Phoenix Agency. My team was hired by Mara’s parents to find her and bring her home.”

  She let out the breath she had been holding, relieved to find out he wasn’t a cop. Not that it boded well for her that even more people had their hands in the situation. “So, you know that I—”

  He grabbed her foot back with a frown and shoved it back under the water.

  She wanted to give him hell for it, but she wanted t
hat sting to go away even more.

  “That you claim to be clairvoyant? Yeah, I might have heard.”

  “But you don’t believe me?”

  “I think someone clairvoyant would have seen the broken glass incident coming.”

  “I don’t see everything,” she snapped.

  He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “That’s convenient.”

  “Found it,” Jasmine said from the doorway holding the kit in the air.

  Neither of them looked away from one another.

  “Did I miss something?” Jasmine asked.

  Lily glanced down to where her boy had started massaging her ankle. He followed her gaze and his hand froze.

  “No,” he said taking the kit from Jasmine. He dropped the kit on the counter next to her thigh with a loud thud.

  Lily met Jasmine’s eyes over his head and Jasmine shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’ll just get the mess cleaned up in the living room. I’ll be right back,” Jasmine said while grabbing cleaner and paper towels.

  He tore open a gauze pad and laid it out on the counter before pulling a pair of tweezers out of the kit. Lily hugged herself as she watched him dump rubbing alcohol over them before laying them on the gauze.

  He clasped her ankle again and shut off the water. “Okay, we’re going to do this quick, so hold on.” He took the tweezers in his right hand, held her ankle with his left, and in one swift motion he slid the glass out of her foot.

  “Oh, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Lily said as she craned her neck to see her foot. “Thank you.”

  Her boy glanced up, “You’re welcome.” The words hung in the air like a feather tumbling in the breeze, dancing back and forth, never really leaving and never landing.

  He’d lived in her visions, he’d occupied her dreams, and one of the visions in his life she had witnessed, to this day, was the source of her greatest shame.

  She averted her gaze, unable to look into the dark depths of his eyes any longer. Lily had an expressive face, her every feeling right there for the world to see. She didn’t need him seeing her guilt and mistaking it for guilt in Mara’s disappearance.

  Not when this time she had just tried to do the right thing.

  He wrapped her foot in gauze and taped her up.

  She spun her legs, intending to hop down off the counter herself, but he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her down.

  Surprised by the movement she laid her hands on his shoulders to steady herself and stood there, trapped with the cool granite counter against the exposed skin of her back where her shirt had lifted. The front of her, well that was another matter altogether. He radiated heat. The warm, spicy scent of his cologne, just a hint really, had her taking a deep breath, hoping for just a bit more of his scent.

  With their close proximity, his dress shirt touching her sweater, his hands on her waist, and her fingers now curled into his shoulders, she knew just what it looked like, but in that moment, she couldn’t stop herself. She may never see him again.

  “Umm, hello, I’m still here. If y’all are done dating, can we get this over with so Lily and I can go back to our wine?” Jasmine said.

  Her words pulled them both out of their haze. His hands jumped off her waist as if he had laid his hands on a hot burner and only just felt the sting of the burn.

  “I have questions,” he said

  “I’m not sure I have answers, but I’ll tell you what I can. What’s your name?”

  “Mason Devlin.”

  “Mason. Okay, well, let’s go to the living room.

  Chapter 4

  Mason had a hard time reconciling the tall, irritated woman, with the pink streaked hair who answered the door being the same Lily Ashmore of Love After Dark.

  Now, with the real Lily standing before him, a part of him wished to trade back to that misconception. He needed to keep his damned composure, but the pint-sized suspect with the liquid amber eyes, button nose, full lips, who clutched at herself, keeping her elbows tucked into her sides, needled at the part of him compelled to protect.

  “Can I get you something to drink before we head in?” she said, avoiding his eyes.

  She’d felt it, too. He’d stake his life on it. That pull of…something when he lifted her off the counter. A shift, an awareness unlike anything he’d ever felt.

  Her voice had soothed him coming through his speakers, quieting a storm that had been raging in him since the day his sister disappeared. He’d never been a huge fan of love songs, even went so far as to find the whole concept of love total and utter bullshit. But on those nights, with Lily’s rasp rolling over him and finding its way inside him, he’d been tempted to believe.

  Not tonight, though. He needed to put the brakes on that shit. If for no other reason than he knew exactly what she was…a con artist.

  “I came here for answers. Just answers,” he said.

  Her eyes widened and her mouth tightened. “Fine,” she said, before limping toward the living room.

  Did she have to limp? Couldn’t she have pretended her foot didn’t hurt? Feeling like he kicked a puppy, he followed her into the living room where her friend was just gathering up her supplies from cleaning the floor.

  He glanced down, the stain hadn’t come all the way out, but blood rarely ever did. Carpet fibers sucked it up like sweating marathon runners just crossing a finish line searching for the nearest water cooler.

  Unfortunate in a room like this. It was the kind of living room you saw in catalogs or on home improvement shows. The clean blues and grays seemed almost masculine but for the soft, yellow glow of the sconces and lamps on the ivory furniture.

  Not bad for a single woman with a single income. At least he assumed she was single, because despite the cool features of the room, the energy just screamed one hundred percent female. It was the little touches: The pumpkin spice scent, that told him she loved this time of year, the crystal bowl on the table in the foyer devoid of change and keys, and the way the throw blankets perched in their perfect folds at diagonal angles on the corners of the couches.

  Lily gestured to the chair. “Please, sit.”

  “Thanks.” He pulled out his legal pad, pen, and his recorder. Flicking the on switch he asked, “Do you have a problem with my recording this?”

  She propped her wounded foot on the coffee table. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “I need a simple yes, or no.” He resisted the urge to yank at his tie.

  She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her friend padded into the living room with fresh wine and handed a glass to Lily before dropping onto the sofa next to her. With the crisis over, she’d gone back to that distrustful glare and leveled it right at him.

  “I’m going to need the same from you if you plan to chime in,” he said meeting her friend’s defiant expression.

  “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.” As a matter of fact, although not ordinarily a betting man, he’d stake his life on it.

  She shrugged and sipped her wine and for a moment he wondered if she was going to hold out until she finally said, “Fine. Yes, you may record me. Does that work for you?”

  “Yes. And your name?”

  “Jasmine Eckert.”

  “Thank you.”

  He directed his attention to Lily. “When was the first time you saw Mara Wilkins and her mother Leanne Wilkins?”

  “In the park. The day I spoke to Mrs. Wilkins.”

  He noted her use of “Mrs. Wilkins” instead of Leanne. He had to give her credit for being respectful. Her choice of words made him wonder about her upbringing. A shred of an accent he couldn’t place broke through in bits and pieces. “You’d never seen either of them before?”

  “No.”

  “Think hard. You live in the same neighborhood. Frequent the same stores maybe. The same coffee shops. You sure you never saw them?”“I don’t…”
she shook her head, “Neither of them looked familiar.”

  She pulled one of the throw blankets off the corner of the couch and piled it in her lap. She ran her fingers over the fringed edges.

  “How often do you frequent Patterson Park?”

  She shrugged. “I try for once a week. Depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  She sighed. “The weather. My work schedule. How much free time I have. The usual.”

  “What did it depend on that day?”

  “The weather.”

  “And what was the weather?”

  “Cloudy.”

  “Any chance of rain?”

  “Yes.”

  His hand froze over his pad and he glanced up at her. “And you wanted to spend time in the park, anyway?”

  “I was there, wasn’t I?”

  Defensive. Hmmm. He bit his lip reminding himself to not bite back. “What did you do while you were in the park?”

  “I walked the figure eight twice and sat at the pagoda to read.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “So, you intentionally went to the park, planning to read, despite the rain?”

  “It’s not like I was planning to sit in the rain to read.”

  “Then what did you have planned?”

  “To read before the rain arrived.”

  She looked at him as though he was the world’s biggest dunce as she said it.

  Nothing about her answers indicated she was making anything up. She stuck to clear details, not offering more than what was asked. Not seeming to try to anticipate the answer he was looking for. All indications were that she was telling the truth, unless she had mastered the art of lying. She wouldn’t be the first women he’d known who did.

  He welcomed the spark of temper. The glare, the pinched lips, they ignited a fire in him, making him crave a heated debate followed up by even hotter action.

  If she wasn’t a suspect, that is.

  “Did you have company at any point in time?”

  “No.”

  “This vision you claimed to have, was it before going to the park or at the park?”

  She raised her chin. “I didn’t just claim to have a vision.”

  “You know what I mean.”