Slightly Psychic
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Sandra Steffen
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CHAPTER 1
Lila Delaney waited to look the detective in the eye until after he ushered her into the small, cluttered office at police headquarters in Hartford. He watched her closely as she took her seat at the marred, Formica-topped table. A second detective adjusted the blinds before dropping to the chair opposite her. They didn’t believe what she’d told them over the phone.
“You said you know where Holly Baxter is,” the first one said the instant introductions were out of the way.
Lila’s reply was an anxious little cough that did nothing to alleviate the nerves jumping in her stomach. She hadn’t expected this to be easy. After all, she wasn’t a world-renowned psychic who could foretell the future. She simply had an unexplainable intuition that came in handy when helping her friends make career choices or find a lost pet. She’d never tried to help the police find a missing person. Of course, until this week, she’d never experienced a vision of this magnitude, and she’d certainly never ignored her own voice of reason, the one telling her to run, race, bolt in the opposite direction. Instead, here she was in Connecticut preparing to tell the authorities what she knew.
They wouldn’t have agreed to her request for a meeting if their meager leads hadn’t fizzled. The fact was, they were desperate to find Senator Charles Baxter’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Holly, who’d been missing for four days. Foul play was suspected, and everyone feared the worst.
“On the phone you said you saw Holly in your dreams.” The older of the two, Lieutenant Owens was doing the talking, Detective Malone the smirking.
Lila couldn’t decide who they reminded her of. Not Batman and Robin or the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Fred and Rickie? Ralph and Ed? Her longtime fiancé Alex Richardson often complained that she watched too much late-night television. He was due back from Dallas tomorrow. Surely if he were here, he would have tried to talk her out of this.
“Ms. Delaney?”
Hearing her name startled her. Recovering, she said, “My vision was similar to a dream, except I was awake when I saw her.”
Owens strummed his fingers on the tabletop. Malone leaned back in his metal chair, bored. Lila could only sigh. Trying to make a nonbeliever believe was like trying to make a color-blind man see yellow, green and blue.
Leveling both men an I’m-not-enjoying-this-any-more-than-you-are stare, she said, “Look. I’m a busy psychologist with a successful practice. I didn’t have to come here, and I want your word that you won’t exploit me or my efforts to help.” She waited for Owens to nod before she continued. “I believe Holly Baxter is being held in an old stone inn deep in the Hartford countryside.”
The detectives couldn’t help leaning ahead in their chairs. “What do you mean she’s being held?”
“Her hands were cuffed.”
“But she’s alive?”
Lila had seen Holly Baxter writhing, an expression of intense pain on her young face. Closing her eyes on a feeling of deep and imminent sadness, she said, “I believe she is, yes.”
“Where is this inn?” Malone asked, speaking for the first time.
This was the part Lila most dreaded trying to explain. “I don’t know where it is, exactly.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. She’s wasting our time.”
Malone was going to be no help whatsoever. Turning to his partner, Lila said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll know it when I see it.”
She wasn’t the only one who was surprised when he said, “Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later she was sitting in the passenger seat of an unmarked police car heading out of Hartford. Other than occasional static on the police radio, not a sound came from the interior of that car. Keeping her mind clear of doubt, she concentrated on the falling leaves and the shadows cast by the evening sun. Every so often she told Detective Malone to turn right or left. She lost the trail a few times, and had to ask him to turn around. Each time they neared an old house that had been converted into a bed-and-break-fast inn, he slowed slightly, waiting for her to say something.
At one point she happened to notice him looking in his rearview mirror. A bundle of nerves, she glanced over her shoulder in time to see a Channel 4 news van round the corner behind them. He swore under his breath, but it was too late to turn back because goose bumps skittered up and down her body, and her earlier vision shot through her mind.
“Turn here,” she said louder than before.
He swerved. Barely keeping the car out of the ditch, he made a right onto Hampton Road.
“There,” she said, motioning to a narrow driveway between crumbling stone pillars. Her stomach was on fire, and she felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as they pulled through the open gate.
“That looks like Holly’s car,” Detective Owens said, pointing to the back corner of a blue Beamer, all that was visible behind an overgrown hedge near the back of the property.
“Room number six,” Lila whispered, squeezing her eyes shut against the image playing behind them.
“Stay here,” Owens ordered, getting out. But she followed anyway.
Malone radioed for backup.
“And you—” Owens glared at the news team. “Stay out of the way or I’ll throw you in jail for obstructing justice.”
The news team gave the detectives a head start before closing in, leaves crunching with every step they took. Lila followed far more furtively.
“Police!” Malone yelled. “Open up.”
A woman screamed.
Malone kicked in the door. He and Owens entered, pistols drawn. The cameraman crowded closer. Holly Baxter screamed again.
Peering around everyone else, Lila stared at the naked man in the king-size bed. “Alex?”
“Lila, what the hell?” He grabbed the sheet to cover himself.
“You’re supposed to be in Dallas.” Her voice seemed to come from far away.
“You know him?” Lieutenant Owens asked, his gun still pointed.
Holly Baxter nodded slowly.
And Lila heard herself say, “He’s my fiancé.” Shuddering violently, she added, “My ex-fiancé, it would seem.”
Holly blushed scarlet. Alex looked shell-shocked. Somewhere, someone chuckled.
The room spun, and Lila spun with it. A strange silence was falling all around her. She felt herself falling, too, and all the while she was aware of the cameraman capturing everything on film.
