Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery)

by Baron, Marilyn

  It was the nutcase on the telephone in the flesh. Another psycho psychic the world could do without. Tempting or not, he was going to show her the door and get a jump-start on his much-needed vacation.

  “Look, lady, you can waltz your pretty little butt out of this precinct. Nobody is interested in your wild rantings. You’re wasting our time and the taxpayer’s money when we could be working on more important cases.”

  “Like the Midtown Strangler?”

  Jack yanked on his shirt collar. “Damn.”

  He didn’t have to take this shit. What right did she have to come in here criticizing the way he did his job? The woman might be the hottest piece of ass he’d come across in a long time, but she was not his type. End of story. Psychics were off limits. In a way they were like prostitutes, only they fucked with your mind, not your body. Major buzz kill. He’d be taking a shower alone when he got home—a cold one.

  “Yes, I know about that unsolved case,” Katherine said. “So does everyone else in the city. You can’t seem to catch him, and until you do, no one is safe. Did you call my report in like you promised?”

  Did everyone in the world know he had failed to apprehend The Midtown Strangler? Was it trending on Twitter?

  “Look, I’m off duty, so you can just talk to that nice officer sitting over there at the desk,” Jack said, pointing to the front of the squad room. “Sarge, you’re in for a real treat. This woman has something she wants to get off her…um, chest.”

  He needed to get away from this kook. Her manicured nails gripped his arm and attempted to spin him around. He stopped in his tracks. The prognosticating pixie was surprisingly strong.

  “I’m talking to you, Detective Jack Hale,” said the diminutive stunner. “And you’d damn well better listen, or you’re going to be sorry.”

  “Is there a problem here?” Reacting to the raised voices, the sergeant got up from his desk and walked toward Jack and his visitor. “If you have some issues to work out with your girlfriend, Hale, you’d better take them out of the precinct.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” Katherine turned her attention away from Jack and toward the man approaching her. “I’m Katherine Crystal. I called in to report a plane crash, and he ignored me. Are you his boss? I want you to reprimand him.”

  “I’m not the captain, but what’s this about a plane crash?” Sergeant Lisle asked.

  Jack jerked a finger at Katherine. “This psycho, I mean psychic, claims Vince Rivers’ plane is going to crash in Georgia and his son is going to die. I humored her, but of course she’s making the whole thing up just to make a name for herself.”

  “Ma’am, I’m Sergeant Anthony Lisle,” he said, extending his hand and nodding politely in Katherine’s direction. “Is what Detective Hale said true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, young lady, don’t you worry, we’re going to get to the bottom of this,” Sarge assured, covering Katherine’s tiny hand with his big meaty one.

  So, Sarge had charm. Who knew?

  “When is this crash supposed to happen?”

  “That’s just it. I had this vision, but I don’t know. It might already have happened.”

  “Sarge,” interrupted Jack. “It’s a vision. Nothing concrete to act on.”

  “I haven’t seen anything about it on TV,” reasoned the sergeant. “We haven’t had anything reported, except for your call.” Sarge narrowed his eyes and glared at Jack.

  Jack flinched. How could Sarge believe this soothsayer that he’d known for one minute over a cop whose family he’d known for years? Then he gave Katherine Crystal a second look. The reason was obvious. Sarge was a man, and she was a perfectly put together woman. What guy wouldn’t respond to that?

  A rush of uniforms swarmed into the squad room, causing a minor commotion and jostling Jack and Katherine while they vied for Sarge’s attention.

  “Sarge, you’ve gotta come see this,” shouted one officer. “Turn up the volume on your TV. It’s breaking news.” Being the tallest person in the room, Jack strode over to Sarge’s desk and adjusted the volume on the television before Sarge could get to the remote.

  Crowded around the TV, the group looked up at the steaming wreckage on the big screen.

  “Vince Rivers’ plane just crashed at the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport,” said one of the officers. “We got the call to assist.”

  “Is fire-and-rescue on the scene?” inquired Sarge.

  “Yes, and the place is crawling with reporters.”

  “Okay, we’ve got to get down there,” Sarge directed.

  It hit Jack like a punch in the gut when he saw the headline scrolling across the screen:

  Vince Rivers Injured in Private Plane Crash.

  Ocean Rivers Dead.

  Chapter Two

  Midtown Atlanta, Three Weeks Later

  Jack paced the highly-polished hardwood floors in his Midtown condo like a caged panther. The place looked like a pigsty. He’d ordered in pizza four nights in a row and finished up the last bottle of beer. Now he’d moved on to the hard stuff.

  He’d tossed and turned but hardly slept since the news of Ocean Rivers’ death went viral. Holed up in his condo for a week after the crash, he’d avoided work because he didn’t want to deal with people. But life as a hermit crab was not all it was cracked up to be.

  He couldn’t get the TV images of a devastated Vince Rivers walking behind the tiny white casket at the cemetery out of his mind. And Vince Rivers struggling to keep his distraught wife from jumping into the grave after it.

  Predicting the death of Ocean Rivers could have been a lucky guess. Jack did not believe in psychics, but maybe this Katherine Crystal was for real and he was foolish for ignoring her warnings.

  Dammit, that Crystal woman was messing with his head. She was all over the news. Every time he turned on the tube he saw her face. Her unforgettable face. He couldn’t stop fantasizing about her long dark ringlets, those violet eyes and pouty lips, and the rest of the irresistible package. He thought maybe it was the beer talking, but even when he was cold stone sober he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  The media had dubbed her Crystal Ball Kate and they couldn’t get enough of her. He couldn’t blame them. She was making the rounds of all the daytime talk shows and late night programs. In fairness, she didn’t look too eager or comfortable in the spotlight, but the reporters and the cameras worshipped her. Her fifteen minutes of fame had exploded into infinity and beyond. The talking heads couldn’t stop talking about her and fussing over her, flashing on every gory detail of the crash.

  He didn’t bring that plane down. Hell, it was probably already in the air by the time she called. Jack downed the rest of his Jack Daniels and mentally kicked himself in the ass. He could justify his actions all he wanted, but what if he could have saved that child? What if the disaster could have been averted?

  Sarge thought so. He had reamed him out in front of the whole squad for not following the rules and reporting Katherine Crystal’s call. And he’d had a mouthful to say about the Midtown Strangler and Jack’s failure to make any progress on that case.

  To make matters worse, Sarge had hired Katherine Crystal to consult with him on the strangler case. That is, when she wasn’t flying around the country making television appearances.

  Jack passed by his bathroom mirror and pulled up short. Jesus, he looked like a werewolf. He had to get rid of all this hair. But a pact was a pact, and he still hadn’t caught the strangler. He scratched his chin. His head was beginning to itch. Or maybe it was the mind games Katherine was playing with him. Maybe she was into voodoo magic.

  She’d come into the precinct last week to discuss the case. She certainly didn’t dress like any cop he knew. She stuck out like a sore thumb walking around Midtown in her tight, low-cut red designer dress, dripping in jewelry and tripping in her high-heeled shoes. He’d had to catch her twice when the heel of her shoe got stuck in a sewer grate. She felt good in his arms. But she had no law enforcement ex
perience to speak of. She was just a drag on the investigation. Nothing more than eye candy—window dressing.

  “He’s not here,” Kate had insisted on their walk-around.

  “What do you mean, he’s not here? He’s not in Midtown? Not in Atlanta?”

  “Not in this country.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve had a vision.”

  Jack was exasperated. “Are you frigging kidding me?”

  Kate had gone quiet, completely clammed up.

  “Well?” Jack demanded. “What did you see?”

  Kate crossed her arms and stood on the sidewalk outside the precinct. “You won’t believe me.”

  Sometimes he wanted to kick her in her well-rounded butt. Sometimes he wanted to grab her butt and kiss the breath out of her. Working with her these past few weeks had done a number on him.

  “He’s gone home,” Kate said.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Where is home?”

  “Australia,” Kate said simply.

  Jack shook his head and walked into the precinct with Kate on his heels. He was not working with this nut job. She was pulling things out of the air.

  Sarge signaled them over to his desk.

  “Jack, Kate, there’s been another murder. Scumbag with the same MO as our Midtown Strangler. A copycat.”

  “He’s not a copycat,” Katherine insisted softly. “He’s the same killer.”

  “Impossible,” stated Sarge. “Sydney, Australia, is his new killing field.”

  Jack choked. “Australia?” He looked at Katherine.

  “Yep. He’s gone Down Under.”

  Jack turned to Katherine. “How did you know? Did Sarge tell you?”

  “This is the first time I’ve mentioned it to anyone,” Sarge said. “We’ve been asked by the police to fly to Sydney to see if we can be of assistance.”

  “We?” Jack asked warily.

  “You and Kate.”

  Jack shook his head. “Not going to happen.”

  “Listen to me, Jack. They didn’t ask for you. They asked for Crystal Ball Kate. I’m sending you along as her escort.”

  Jack bristled.

  “They’ve seen her on TV and they feel she could help them break the case.”

  “They don’t need a pseudo-psychic who couldn’t see the future if she tripped over it. She doesn’t know the first thing about murder. I’m the legitimate law enforcement professional, the one familiar with the case.”

  “Sour grapes,” Kate mumbled.

  Sarge’s eyes narrowed and skewered Jack’s. “Your vast knowledge about the subject hasn’t done you much good in solving your case, has it? You will go with her and make sure she gets anything she needs to solve this case.”

  “You mean like her assistant?”

  “Whatever she needs.”

  Katherine smothered a smile. She was mocking him. In front of Sarge and all the guys standing around doing a lousy job of pretending they weren’t listening. He didn’t find it the least bit amusing, but apparently everyone else thought it was hilarious.

  “I’ll go home and pack, Sergeant,” Katherine said pleasantly.

  After she left the precinct, Jack gritted his teeth and faced the captain.

  “She sells art for a living,” Jack said. “The kind of art with lines and shapes and colors that don’t look like anything.”

  “I don’t care if she’s a dog walker. Her track record speaks for itself. Now you go to Sydney and keep close tabs on her. Don’t let her out of your sight. You got a problem with that, take it up with the lieutenant or the captain. The orders come from higher up. My hands are tied. But if anything happens to her, I’m holding you personally responsible. Make sure the department looks good. Don’t screw this up.”

  Jack stewed all the way home. He didn’t need this aggravation. He wasn’t going to be a cop the rest of his life. He was going to law school at night, and he was close to graduation. As soon as he got his degree and passed the bar, he was going to be a lawyer. Maybe it was time to quit. His father had loved being a cop. Jack didn’t. But he wanted to catch the serial killer who had terrorized Midtown. That was a matter of personal pride.

  He was sure the murderer in Sydney was not the same man, despite what Crystal Ball Kate had said. But what choice did he have? He could either go to Sydney with the wacko psychic or quit the force. It would be so easy to call in his resignation.

  Jack walked into his condo and looked around at the clutter. What kind of a mess had he gotten himself into? He wanted to give Crystal Ball Kate a piece of his mind.

  Frowning, he picked up the phone and started to dial.

  Chapter Three

  En route to Sydney, Australia

  “Miss, are you all right?” The flight attendant spoke in hushed tones. Katherine felt Jack’s arms reach over and gently shake her shoulders.

  “It’s just another bad dream,” Jack assured her. “She’ll be okay.”

  “Take your hands off me,” Katherine said, jolting forward until the tug of her seatbelt yanked her back against the uncomfortably stiff seatback. Agitated, she gripped Jack’s wrists and hung on for dear life.

  “You were having that dream about the plane crash again. You’re scaring the other passengers. Go back to sleep,” he ordered.

  Easy for him to say. Within minutes, the man was snoring like he didn’t have a care in the world, although in sleep Jack fidgeted as much as when awake, adjusting his hulking frame to find a comfortable position. Katherine almost felt sorry for him. Almost. The seats were too cramped even for someone of her size, and he had almost a foot on her. Her thighs rested in an awkward position on the hard seat cushion. She looked over at Jack. They’d been sitting next to each other on this plane for almost twenty hours. And he’d been stuffing his face for most of that time.

  Whenever Jack stood, his head bumped into the overhead luggage compartment. He was probably a bed hog, too. As if she’d ever share a bed with a man with all that body hair. She didn’t care much for cavemen. He had probably been a linebacker in college. A linebacker who’d gotten his head bashed in one too many times. He didn’t seem too bright.

  He was also a total pig, or else he had a tapeworm. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was eating. The man was perpetually hungry. Every time she came back from the lavatory, the flight attendant had delivered another snack. For someone his size, there was not an ounce of fat on the man, but he was so damn big, he was constantly crossing over into her personal space.

  Katherine didn’t tell Jack that the subject of her latest dream was not Rivers’ plane crash. She had started flashing on the Sydney strangler again, the same man who had gone on a killing spree in Midtown Atlanta, then abruptly changed continents without changing his MO.

  The Down Under dream episode had exhausted her, drained her so completely she could hardly keep her mind focused. It wasn’t easy for her to fall back asleep. But the flight attendant had appeared unflustered. This plane wasn’t going down.

  “Now I know where I’ve seen you before,” announced Perky Patty. Correction, Shelby was the name on her badge. Sexy Shelby, then. “You’re Crystal Ball Kate, that psychic on TV, the one who predicted Ocean Rivers would die in the plane crash.”

  Katherine frowned. She hated her new moniker.

  “How do you do that?” Shelby asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Make those predictions. Have you always had magical psychic powers?”

  “They’re not magical powers,” Katherine objected, rolling her eyes and picking up a magazine, pretending to read it. “I just see things.”

  “Your magazine is upside down,” Shelby persisted.

  Katherine turned the magazine around and shoved it into the seat pocket in front of her.

  “If you can read my mind, then what am I thinking?” Shelby challenged.

  Was she wearing an invisible sign that read Free Readings on Board? Katherine reached up and pressed the button to turn off her overhead light. She knew e
xactly what Shelby was thinking. The woman was easy to read, since her mind was as porous as a sieve, with silly thoughts leaking out of it at a steady rate. She was hovering, probably hoping Jack would wake up. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know Shelby had been coming on to Jack the whole flight. The flight attendant was a shamelessly transparent bubblehead. Is there anything I can do for you, Detective Hale? Anything I can get for you? Can I freshen your drink? Show you around Sydney after we land? Show you what’s under my uniform? Well, she hadn’t said that, exactly. But she was undoubtedly thinking it.

  Shelby knew Jack was a police detective because he’d had to inform the airline he was carrying a weapon onto the plane. A cop with a weapon was a total turn-on to some women. And why should she care? They weren’t a couple. But Sexy Shelby didn’t know that.

  Katherine yawned, hoping Shelby would get the hint and start paying attention to passengers in another row.

  As the cut-rate Koala Blue jet streaked across the sky, rattling like an enormous wash bucket, Katherine had the chilling feeling the Sydney serial killer was about to strike again. She could sense him stalking his next victim. She wasn’t sure they would arrive in Sydney in time for her to prevent the senseless death of yet another young woman.

  Since the New South Wales Police Force in Sydney had contacted the Atlanta Police Department inquiring about Katherine’s ability to help in their case, she had seen the Sydney strangler in a number of visions. He was young and handsome, blond, and innocent-looking. His victims were, too.

  She had described the man to Sydney police over the phone, but they wanted her in Australia, in person, to wring every bit of knowledge out of her, to bleed her mind dry.

  In the past, the closer she came to a crime scene, the stronger her visions were. So perhaps it was better for her to be on the strangler’s turf where the action was. But she needed to detach herself. She worked better if she could clear her mind of all emotions.

  Katherine grabbed her bottle of water and swallowed two more aspirin. The more powerful the visions, the more painful the headaches. That’s the way it worked. Pharmaceuticals never seemed to help. She dug the heel of her hand into her forehead to blunt the total terror she was channeling from the victims.