The Phoenix Agency_Blind Spot

by Casey Hagen

  “So we are,” Lily said wringing her hands. She’d never done anything like this. Over the years she had grown used to the fact that she had no control over her visions, but in this, someone had control over her.

  The idea of that terrified her.

  If hypnosis worked, they could access anything in her mind and there were parts she considered off limits to Mason.

  He walked around to her side of car and opened her door offering her a hand. The sensation of her skin meeting his shot right from her toes to the top of her head. If they became a thing, would it be that way forever?

  Something told her it would.

  He drew her up to him and lowered his mouth to her ear. “Relax. This is going to be painless.”

  She shivered. “Easy for you to say, they aren’t going into your head.”

  He cupped her cheek and raised her face to his. Oh, how she loved looking at him in the flesh where she could see the dips and valleys of his facial features, the texture of his rough, short beard. If she wanted, she could reach out and touch him instead of extending a hand to discover thin air streaming through her fingers.

  “No one is going to access anything other than what relates to the case. You have my word on that,” Mason assured her.

  Mason led them up the front steps and rang the bell. A slight, pretty woman answered the door. “Mason, good to see you again,” she said and shook his hand.

  “Angela, good to see you. This is the friend I was telling you about, Lily.”

  Lily reached out and took Angela’s hand. Ordinarily, Lily avoided handshakes. The personal contact could sometimes trigger visions. She did everything possible to protect her new life and avoid scrutiny, but the events of the last few days had crushed that plan to dust.

  Angela’s cool, slim fingers immediately put Lily at ease. Something about her radiated calm and had Lily breathing a bit easier.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Angela.”

  “Please, do come in. I have a few papers for you to sign and we’ll get started.”

  Mason urged Lily forward with his hand on her lower back.

  “Papers?” Lily asked as she followed Angela into a study filled with a soft glow of sunshine filtered through gauze, floor-to-ceiling drapes just off the foyer.

  Angela gestured to a couple of leather high back chairs and took a seat behind her desk. “Yes. A confidentiality agreement as well as a contract that I will only discuss with you the approved content agreed upon for this appointment. I like my clients to know they’re protected.”

  “I appreciate that,” Lily said whooshing out a pent up breath and slumping a bit in her chair.

  “I can see you do,” Angela said tenting her fingers and smiling. “I’m a professional with an excellent reputation. I’ll take good care of you.”

  “So, I won’t leave here barking like a dog whenever I see a red light or clucking like a chicken when I spot a KFC then?”

  Mason and Angela both laughed putting Lily at ease.

  “I’m pretty sure that only happens in movies. The majority of my work is with addicts. Food addiction, smoking, and the like. In the past year, I’ve worked with witnesses to crimes that Mason or his brothers bring to me.”

  “Does it always work? You know, putting someone under.”

  “Not always. I would say a good eighty percent of the time we can extract details that the patient had not been consciously aware of,” Angela said as she handed over a couple of forms and a pen.

  Lily reviewed the paperwork, looking for loopholes, but everything seemed to be on the up and up, so she signed.

  “If you all are ready, we’ll get started. Follow me.”

  She led them to the other end of the study and this time, Angela took a seat in a high back leather chair while Lily and Mason sat on a plush couch.

  “Okay, I want you to listen to the sound of my voice. We’re going to take this one step at a time…”

  Lily nodded and bit her lip. “Okay.”

  “Now, I want you to start by closing your eyes,” Angela said, her voice taking on a melodic, soothing tone.

  Lily let her eyeslids drift shut, uncrossed her arms, and rested her hands on her jean-clad thighs.

  “Excellent, Lily. Remember, you’re safe here. I want you to relax and take a nice, deep cleansing breath. In…” Angela inhaled and Lily followed. “Exhale.” Angela blew out her breath and Lily matched her.

  “Feel your toes completely relax, then your calves, let all the muscles ease and relax. Breathe in, and out.”

  Lily focused on her breathing and the sound of Angela’s voice. The light scent of vanilla soothed her as she let all the sounds and sensations, other than her breathing and Angela’s rhythmic voice, drift away.

  ***

  Mason noticed the minute Lily went under. She slumped into the sofa even more and those big, cleansing breaths she had been taking turned into even deeper breaths.

  His heart galloped in his chest and his breath lodged in his lungs. He’d watched this plenty of times with other witnesses, but never with one—Jesus, he didn’t even know—he cared about?

  He reminded himself that he hadn’t even known her for a full twenty-four hours and here he was, ready to protect her with his life.

  It was as if something beyond the two of them was at work and they were powerless to stop it. He looked at her delicate features and her glowing skin.

  Not that he would try to stop it if he could.

  He might just qualify for a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for how fast he was falling.

  “Mason, she’s ready. I’m going to start and you let me know if you need to add anything.”

  He cleared his throat and flexed his fingers. “Okay. Let me just ask, wasn’t that fast?”

  Angela smiled and patted his knee. “Yes, it was, but she clearly trusts you and she’s open. We might get our best results yet.”

  Angela ran through the series of questions Mason had already asked the night before to see if anything new cropped up, and to make sure the story stayed consistent.

  It did.

  “You’re doing wonderfully, Lily. Now let’s talk about the man in black with the cigarette. I want you to examine him. Head to toe. No detail too small and tell me what you see.”

  “He has a tear in his jacket, the right edge of his front pocket,” Lily said.

  “Good, good. Do you see anything else? Watch him as he moves and his clothing shifts. Do you see any other details?”

  “A gun.”

  “Is he carrying a gun?”

  “No, he had a tattoo of a gun. When he starts across the road his jacket shifts and I can see the barrel. It’s positioned as though the gun is aimed up under his jaw.”

  Mason smiled. That was one hell of a detail and one that Jasper could run through his databases in under thirty minutes to see if they could find a match on record.

  Mason stepped away to the corner of the room and texted the info to Jasper to get him started.

  “Do you see anything else, Lily?”

  “He wants her. The guy. He wants Mara…in that way.”

  Mason’s gaze snapped to Lily and Angela. A lone tear ran down Lily’s cheek. How the hell did she know what was going through the guy’s head? She never said she could tell those sorts of things.

  Mason leaned down to Angela and whispered to her. “Ask her how she knows that?”

  Angela nodded. “Lily, how do you know that he wants Mara?”

  “I just know,” she whispered. Lily leaned forward then, as though she was trying to hear something.

  “Lily, what is it?” Angela asked.

  “As he pushes her into the car, the driver warns him to be careful. Their orders are not to damage the merchandise.”

  So they might have time. If this was just about getting his rocks off, Mara would be dead by now, but if they were collecting girls or picking up particular girls for specific reasons, the window to find her might be considerably longer.

&
nbsp; Of course it also meant that she might have changed hands a dozen times or more over the past few days making the trail a whole hell of a lot harder to track.

  Mason worked to transfer the rest of the information to his team as Angela brought Lily out of hypnosis.

  He joined her on the couch and watched as the fuzziness in her eyes cleared and she gave him a small smile.

  “Tell me I gave you something. Please.”

  “You did. You did great. I’ve sent the information to my team to follow up on.” He relayed what she told them and hugged her when she sagged with relief.

  Smoothing his hand over her hair, he had one thing that niggled at him. He was no expert at visions by any means considering he thought them to be total horseshit just a handful of hours ago.

  “Lily, you said that the guy who abducted her wanted her. When Angela asked you how you knew that, you said, ‘I just know’…what did you mean by that? How could you just know?”

  She stiffened in his arms. “Are you sure I said that?”

  “Positive,” Angela confirmed.

  “That’s impossible,” Lily whispered.

  “What? What does it mean?” Mason asked.

  “It’s a trait of someone who’s claircognizant.” She looked up into his eyes. “Like Jasmine.”

  Mason drove Lily back to his office pondering what she had said along the way. So Jasmine had psychic ability, too. Jesus, did he really just acknowledge that?

  If Lily said it was so, it was so. And now he had to wonder how he could make two psychics with different abilities work to his advantage. There had to be away to get them tapped in and see if anything else came from it.

  When he got back to the office, he’d start by calling Mara’s parents and letting them know he wanted to pull Lily and Jasmine in. He expected blowback, but they wanted their daughter back and he would convince them that this was in their best interest.

  He reached over and took Lily’s hand. “Can you and Jasmine sense anything from being in someone’s space or touching their things?”

  “We’ve never been the kind of people to try to use our abilities in that way, so I just don’t know. It’s worth a shot. I mean, it’s why I avoid people for the most part. I shake hands with new people and visions crop up. The more people I come into contact with, the closer I get to them, the more visions I have.”

  He pulled into the lot in front of his office and turned off the engine. “Look, you have to be beat. Why don’t you go home and rest? I’ll call you when I know what the plan is next.”

  “Okay.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he held fast to it.

  “Lily?”

  “What?” She asked.

  He crooked his finger. “Come here.”

  She leaned in with a slight hesitation and laid her lips on his. With little time, he didn’t deepen the kiss, but instead focused on the sweet shyness of it. He doubted she had been forward with a man ever in her life. Her mannerisms, the volume of her voice, the way she carried herself, was all proof she had been raised a lady.

  He’d never been with a lady before. He’d kept company with aggressive women who didn’t do sweet.

  He couldn’t imagine ever wanting a single one of those vixens again, not once he’d had a taste of Lily.

  Chapter 8

  Lily got into her silver Camry, a color she’d chosen for its lack of flash, hoping to blend in with the other personality-less silver vehicles out there. Mara’s disappearance blew that anonymity right out of the water. When this was all over, she was going to buy the blue streak metallic she had really wanted.

  She pulled out her cell phone to check her messages. When she’d taken off to give Mason a piece of her mind, she hadn’t expected…well, anything that came after. Her best laid plans went right off the rails and she’d forgotten to check in with Jasmine.

  Jasmine, of course, had checked in with her.

  I hope you’re giving him hell.

  Okay, you’ve been gone for two hours. Did you get arrested?

  Lily smiled at that one.

  Look woman, I’m not getting a vibe that anything is wrong with you at the moment, so I’m going to duck out for a bit. I’m making you dinner tonight. Your favorite

  Lily smiled and glanced up at Mason’s office one last time before she pulled away.

  He believed her. He finally believed her, and she didn’t have to worry about being ridiculed again. At least not from him.

  She needed to have a talk with Jasmine about her gut feeling. That was Jasmine’s skill, never Lily’s, but all of a sudden now, for the first time, she channeled that skill and she had to wonder if it was because Jasmine was close, maybe their skills were teaming up in a way.

  If that was the case, what could the four of them do together?

  She pulled in front of her house, locked her car, and headed for the front door. She went to aim her key at her lock and froze.

  The door stood open an inch. Splinters of wood jutted out from the door casing surrounding what had once been her deadbolt. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her skin prickled. She peered through the crack, debating on whether or not to go in.

  She listened for movement. The silence was almost deafening and tangible. She searched around for witnesses, but her end of the street stay eerily silent. Not exactly unusual as her neighbors were all two-income households and worked most days.

  She did another survey to make sure she wasn’t being watched before she tried to conjure a vision and then called herself all sorts of a fool for even worrying about it. She’d been in the press.

  Wait? Where were the news crews? How did anyone get away with breaking into her house without being noticed?

  She laid her hand on the door and closed her eyes, willing the images to come to tell her who did this.

  She did the best she could to clear her mind. Taking long, deep breaths, she focused on the cool surface of the door beneath her fingers. She concentrated so hard that within minutes, her head began to ache.

  Just when she was ready to give up, the images came to her in a grainy wave. Men in uniform, policemen from what she could tell, clearing out the journalists and making like they were cornering off the street. Then the knock on her door, but they didn’t identify themselves, they just waited. When no one answered, the tallest officer with the black hair looked up and down the street before nodding to the other two officers who stepped forward with a sledgehammer.

  It only took one hard hit against the deadbolt to break through the door frame. The officer with the dark hair pried open the door the rest of the way and they ducked inside.

  A horn beeped from around the corner and the vision disappeared like a delicate bubble popping in the palm of a child’s outstretched hand.

  Vibrating with nervous energy, Lily pushed open the door and stepped inside. Her couch cushions had been torn off the couch and strewn about the room. The coffee table stood up on its side, the coasters and crystal bowl lay on the carpet next to the couch.

  She made her way into the kitchen where utensils, potholders, and Ziploc bags littered the floor. Her mugs and glasses lay in pieces on the counter, floor, and in the sink.

  They’d destroyed the place.

  Oh no! Her room.

  She took off at a run and jumped over the picture frames shattered on the floor. Gasping for air she cleared the top step and tore around the corner to her master doorway. Her bedding had been torn off, her mattress cut open. The clothes from her drawers lay strewn about. She pushed open the closet, ignoring the mess there, and searched for the box.

  She pushed through the clothes and broken hangers. “Please, please be in here.” She threw item after item out the closet door, her ragged breathing the only sound in the room.

  In the back corner she found the red lid and dropped to her knees. The contents had all been dumped in a pile. Notes, drawings, dates, and a journal all strewn about, but unharmed.

  She picked up the journal, open to Mason’s retirement from t
he Army. The details of her visions memorialized in ink gave her a smile. She gathered the contents one at a time and laid them back in the box.

  On top, she laid the small, teal notebook with Alegra’s name scrolled across the front in black Sharpie.

  After tucking the box into the corner, on the floor, under where her shirts hung, she called Mason.

  “Hey, I’m glad you called. I talked to Mara’s parents. They aren’t too thrilled about it, but they’re willing to meet you in their home to see if you can work your magic. Can I pick you up and we’ll grab dinner on the way?”

  “Ummm, sure. Look, I think I might have become part of the case, not just a witness,” she said, her voice laced with uncertainty.

  “Wait. Why do you say that?”

  “Because someone trashed my home.”

  “I’m on my way. Tell me you’re not in the house.”

  She flinched. “I’m not in the house?” She said with a high-pitched, guilty tone.

  “Son of a bitch,” he ground out. “Get out of there.”

  “It’s empty,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not chancing it. Get out of the house, Lily. Wait in your car, lock your doors. If anyone approaches you, you leave. Got it?”

  “Well, yes, but I think you might be overreacting.”

  “Lily!” Jasmine’s voice called up the stairs.

  Lily put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “I’m up here.”

  Jasmine careened around the corner and came to a halt in Lily’s doorway. “Shit. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay. Mason wants us to get out of the house.”

  “Yeah, agreed. Come on.” Jasmine took her hand and led her out of the room around the carnage.

  ***

  Mason squealed around the corner onto North Patomic Street with his raging heart thundering in his ears. He skidded to a stop, relieved to see Lily and Jasmine sitting in the car ahead of him.

  Desperate to get his hands on her and reassure himself she was okay, he yanked open her door and dragged her out of the car, tucking her into his arms.