Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye
Psychic Eye Series Book 1
Victoria Laurie
[v0.9 Scanned & Spellchecked by the_usual from dt]
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
For my sister, Sandy Upham Morrill.
You are my rock, my rainbow, and my sounding board.
I'm so extraordinarily lucky to be related
to you—my very best friend!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for all their help, support and encouragement in the development of this book. My sister, Sandy Upham Morrill, who offered love, support and encouragement along with that now (in)famous conjunction "Or…" My amazing agent, Jim McCarthy, who never fails to tell me the truth, but only after wrapping it in a blanket of kindness. My incredible editor, Martha Bushko, who truly "gets" me and allows me so much freedom to roam and explore and experiment. Detective Don Swiatkowski of the Royal Oak Police Department, who generously offered his time, ideas and expertise. And of course that band of gifted intuitives, mediums and psychics who are my dear friends and supporters and who have each "seen" this all along: Thomas Robinson, Kevin Allen, Kimmie Kroll, Joy Austin, Laurie Lipton, Laurie Comnes, Patty Tanner, Debbie Sparling, Silas Hudson and Rebecca Rosen. A heartfelt thanks to you all.
Prologue
On May 28 of this year, at approximately four thirty p.m., Officer Shawn Bennington was summoned to 1865 Meadowlawn in response to a 911 emergency. The following is an excerpt from his notes in that file:
Victim was a twenty-eight-year-old female Caucasian dead at the scene from a single gunshot wound to the left temple. Victim was discovered in a quasi-fetal position on the bed in her room. A neighbor at 1863 Meadowlawn reported hearing a "loud popping noise" at approximately 3:00 p.m. Victim was discovered at approximately 4:20p.m., when her fiancé came over to check on the victim after not being able to reach her by phone. 911 emergency was alerted within minutes of discovery.
The handgun used was a twenty-five-caliber Smith and Wesson, registered to the victim. Fingerprints found on the gun appear to match those of the victim. A suicide note was recovered from the top of the victim's dresser (see enclosure in file) and a mutilated wedding dress was also discovered crumpled in a heap near the bed.
Signs of depression were recently noted by the victim's sister, who suggested that the victim seemed tense and edgy in last few days, and had complained of feeling tired. Lately the victim had been known to take long naps in the afternoon. Victim's sister was not present at the time of shooting.
File is tentatively being marked as "Suicide," pending completion of forensic evidence for powder burns, fingerprints and handwriting analysis. S. Bennington
Chapter One
My basic philosophy is simple: People are like ice cream. Take me, for instance. You'd think that by my profession alone—professional psychic—I'd be a ringer for Nutty Coconut, but the reality is that I'm far more like vanilla—consistent, a little bland, missing some hot fudge.
The exception, of course, is my rather unique ability to predict the future. Okay, so maybe with that added in I'm at least a candidate for French vanilla.
Still, overall my life is sadly that boring. I'm single with no immediate prospects, I rarely go out (hence the no immediate prospects), I pay all my bills on time, I have very few vices and only two close friends.
See what I mean? Vanilla.
Now, I'm not saying my life is all bad. At the very least I'm privy to the richly flavorful lives of my clients. Take the Tooty-Fruity sitting in front of me for example. Sharon is a pretty young woman in her mid-thirties, with short blond hair, too much makeup, a recent boob job and not a clue in sight. On her left hand dangles a rather opulent diamond wedding ring, and over the course of the last twenty minutes all I've been able to do is feel sorry for the poor schmuck who gave it to her.
"Okay, I'm getting the feeling that there's a triangle here…like there's someone else moving in on your marriage," I said.
"Yes."
"And it's someone you're romantically interested in."
"Yes."
"And they're telling me that you think this is true love…"
"Yes, but, uh, Abigail? Who are 'they'?" she asked, looking around nervously.
I get this question all the time, and you would think I would have learned by now to prepare my clients before beginning the session, but change was never my strong suit. "Oh, sorry. 'They' are my crew, or rather, my spirit guides. I believe that they talk to your spirit guides and it all gets communicated back to me."
"Really? Can they tell you their names?" she whispered, still looking around bug-eyed.
We were getting off track here. I pulled us back on course, afraid I would lose the train of thought flittering through my brain. "Uh, no, Sharon, I don't typically get names, I only get pictures and thoughts. So, as I was saying, we were talking about this love triangle, right?"
"Yes," she answered, leaning forward to hang on my every word.
"Okay, I'm just going to give it to you the way they're giving it to me…They're giving me the feeling that this other guy is saying all the right things, that he may say he's interested in you and that he wants to be with you but he's not telling you the whole story." Sharon's bug eyes squinted now as she looked at me critically. "Okay, does this other guy have blond hair?"
"Yes."
"And he works some sort of night job, like, he works at night. … Is he a bartender?"
"Oh my God…yes, he is!"
"And your husband, he's the guy with dark brown hair and a beard or facial hair, right?"
Sharon sucked in a breath of surprise and replied, "Yes, he's got a goatee."
"And your husband does something with computers, like he has something to do with making computers or something."
"He's a computer engineer…"
"Okay, Sharon, they're telling me that the blond is a liar, and that you may not think your husband is Mr. Don Juan but he loves you. They're saying if you leave your husband for this other guy with the blond hair that there won't be any going back. You won't be able to fix it once it's out in the open. And I get the feeling that if you continue to fool around on the side you're going to get caught. If you think you won't, then you're kidding yourself. They're saying there is already a woman, I think she's older than you, with red hair, who's very nosy and she already suspects, and she wouldn't think twice about telling your husband. I think this is like a neighbor or something…"
"Oh my God! My neighbor, Mrs. O'Connor, has red hair, and she would tell my husband!"
"See? She's already very suspicious, and I get the feeling that if you don't rethink this whole thing you could end up divorced and alone. This bartender guy isn't going to marry a divorced woman with two kids. You have two, right? A boy and a girl?"
"Yes, but…" she squeaked.
"No," I said firmly. "No buts. You need to do some hard thinking here, 'cuz there will be no going back, and if. you continue down this path I'm seeing nothing but heartache in your life. You won't really know what you've lost until it's gone."
At that moment I heard the blissful sound of my chime clock dinging and the tape in the cassette player clicked off. I instantly felt relieved. This woman wasn't picking up what I wa
s laying down and it was pretty frustrating to me. I stood and said gently but firmly, "And that's all the time we have." I flipped open the cassette player and removed the tape, enclosed it in its plastic case and handed it to her along with a tissue. Sharon got up with me and walked with bent head and a forced smile toward the door.
She thanked me for my time and was asking when she could come back when I said, "Actually, Sharon, I'd prefer it if you made an appointment with a friend of mine." I walked back toward my credenza and retrieved a card from a stack piled there. "This is Lori Sellers. She's a psychotherapist with an office over on Eleven Mile. She's very good and I think it would be a good thing for you to talk to her about the choices in front of you." I put the card in her outstretched hand. "If you want to come back and see me, I allow only two visits per year, and that's a good rule of thumb. You shouldn't get hooked on readers; remember that all of the answers are inside you. All you have to do is trust yourself and listen."
Sharon didn't look convinced, so I placed my hand on her arm and walked her gently to the door. "Now I want you to go home and replay the tape and consider everything I've said. You have the gift of free will, and it's a powerful force. You can change your own destiny if you put your mind to it. Just be careful, okay? I mean, you've been married, for … what? Ten years?"
Another sucked-in breath of surprise. "Yes. How did you know that?"
I smiled and spread my hands in an "aha" gesture. "I'm psychic."
As I watched Sharon leave I couldn't help but consider for the billionth time how much that word "psychic" still caught in my throat. It's just too close to the word "psycho" for my taste. Typically, when asked what I do for a living I tack on a softer word, like "psychic intuitive" to lend a smidgen of legitimacy. I'd even had business cards made up reading, Abigail cooper, p.i. with teeny-weeny little letters underneath in parentheses spelling out psychic intuitive. Most people think I'm trying to be clever. The truth is, I'm a chickenshit.
I never wanted to be a psychic, professional or otherwise. It's something that was more or less thrust upon me, and I've never really felt comfortable with it. It isn't that I'm not proud of what I do; it's just that I've always been conscious of the fact that I'm different.
For instance, there are plenty of people out there who will engage me in casual conversation and might even find me amusing until they discover what I do for a living…and then they recede like a tide from the beach and I'm left in the sand feeling like I've got a big red X on my forehead. I've been a professional psychic for four years now, and I'm still waiting for the proverbial tide to come back in.
I was just about to close the door after Sharon when one of my regulars, Candice Fusco, came walking down the corridor, carrying a large manila envelope. "Hey, Candice," I called as she caught sight of me.
"Hi, Abby. I'm on time, right?" She glanced at her watch and hurried her step.
"Yup. I was just seeing my last client out." I stepped sideways, holding the door open and allowing her to enter. Candice was probably only an inch or two taller than me, but the three-inch heels I had never seen her go without made her tower over me. She was an elegant woman, with a fondness for expensive suits. Today she wore cream silk that flowed and rippled with the breeze of her movements and set off the tan of her skin and her light blond hair. Her femininity usually makes me a little self-conscious, but within a minute or two I'm over it, eased, I think, by her genuine nature. You would never guess by her dress and mannerisms that Candice is a private investigator, and a damn good one at that—although her most recent successes were helped a bit by yours truly.
"Would you like to sit here or in my reading room?" I asked, closing the door behind Candice.
"Here would be fine, Abby, this shouldn't take us too long," she replied, pulling the straps from her purse and shoulder bag off her shoulder.
"So how's Kalamazoo these days?" I asked, gesturing toward the two chairs in the office waiting room for us to sit in.
"Still there." she said taking a seat, "I swear this drive takes longer every time."
"The way you drive? I doubt it. How long did it take you today?"
"An hour and forty-five minutes."
"New record?"
"Nah. I've done it in an hour and thirty-five before. Of course, I was doing ninety-five the whole time, but I've slowed it down a notch since you told me to."
"Yeah, not a good idea to ignore a warning like that when it comes up." I'd told Candice the last time we saw each other to watch her lead foot or she could end up with a hefty speeding ticket. "So, is that the stuff?" I asked, pointing to the manila envelope she still held.
"Yes, these are the three employees we've narrowed it down to," Candice said, extending the envelope toward me. I took it and opened the flap, extracting three pictures—two women and one man, all posing for mug shots of the employee-badge variety. I flipped quickly from photo to photo, then back through more slowly, taking my time to open my intuition to each person. Candice had called me the previous evening about a new case she was working on. A large company that handled mutual funds had discovered several thousand dollars missing from its clients' portfolios. The company had not made the discovery public yet and wanted Candice's help in identifying the embezzler.
"Okay—these two?" I said, holding up a photo of a man in his mid-forties, with droopy jowls and yellowed teeth, and another of a woman in her mid- to late twenties, with bangs poufed high above her head and gobby eyes coated with too much mascara. "There's something going on between them. I get the feeling that they two have some sort of romantic connection. This guy"—I pointed to the photo of the man—"He's up to no good. I get the feeling that he's sneaky, and it's not just about fooling around with another employee. There's something more sinister here. Did he just buy a new boat?"
"He's made quite a few purchases lately, which is one of the reasons the company suspects him. And yes, one of his purchases was a boat."
"Okay, this is your guy. There's something about this boat, though. I get the feeling that he's covered his tracks pretty good, but there's evidence hidden on the boat. I'd start by snooping around on it and seeing what you turn up."
"What about the third photo?" Candice asked.
I looked at the third photo, an older woman roughly in her late fifties to early sixties, with washed-out gray hair, a prominent nose and muddy eyes. I held the photo and felt around using my radar. "I get the feeling this woman has no clue about what's going on, that she's being used as a pawn or something. This guy may be using her in some way to cover his tracks, setting her up to take the blame for the crime."
"That makes a lot of sense," Candice said. "Most of the evidence is pointing to her right now, but she's been an exemplary employee at the company for almost thirty years. She's about to retire, and we couldn't figure out why, after all this time, she would start stealing from the company."
"Yeah, I agree with your instincts. It really feels to me like she's being set up. Look on the boat, Candice. There's something there."
Candice gave me a big smile as I put the photos back in the envelope. "Thanks, Abby. You've probably saved me a ton of legwork on this."
"No sweat, Candice. By the way, what's the deal with Ireland?"
Candice gave a startled laugh. "God! Does anything get by you? I'm going there next month for a six-week vacation."
"Wow," I said enviously. "Well, you're going to have a great time, but you'll need to pack warmer than you think."
"Thanks. I'll make sure I do. I'll be back in September, and I'm sure I'll be calling you for help on the next big case I get."
"Anytime," I said, standing up as she handed me a check and we walked to the door.
"Say, by the way," Candice said as she stooped to gather up her purse and briefcase, "I saw this documentary the other night on the Discovery Channel about a psychic who works with the police to solve some of their toughest cases, and while I was watching I immediately thought of you. You know, I think you'd make a gr
eat police psychic."
My eyes widened at the suggestion. She had to be kidding, "No way!" I laughed as if she'd made a particularly funny joke.
"Why not? You've helped me find all sorts of clues to white collar crimes. Why not lend that same talent to your community?"
I looked at Candice for a long moment, struggling to come up with a valid reason she would accept as to why I wouldn't go near the police, when my intuition went suddenly haywire and several very quick flashes bulleted through my mind's eye. The vision was so intense that I stepped back abruptly, nearly losing my balance as Candice reached forward quickly to grab my arm and steady me.
"Abby?" she asked alarmed, "Abby, are you okay?"
Startled out of my trance, I snapped my head up and quickly recovered myself. "Yeah, just a really weird déjà vu moment there," I said, shaking my head to clear it. Trying to reassure her, I said, "Listen, you drive safe back home, okay? And call me next time you get into town and we'll have lunch or something."
Candice still looked worried, but being the talented detective that she is, took the hint that I didn't want to talk about what had just happened. "Sounds great. Take care, Abby," she said, squeezing my shoulder.
I closed the door behind Candice and sighed deeply, rubbing my temples. It had been a long morning. I walked over to my appointment book to check what the rest of my day looked like, scrolling my finger down to the next appointment. My eleven o'clock had canceled, and my next client wasn't until one. I did a small "hurrah" with my hands. With the cancellation I had a two-hour break for lunch and whatever.
Not wanting to waste a minute of it, I blew out all the candles I'd lit earlier, grabbed my purse and bolted out the door. As I entered the hallway of my office building, the coolness of the central air wafted over me, instantly rejuvenating me.
One of the hazards of my job is that air pressure and temperature often change when I'm in session with a client. Cold rooms get warm, warm rooms get hot, and sometimes my ears ring with a high-pitched whine. I'd learned over the past few years to ignore most of it, but in the middle of July it was typically more of a struggle. My office was located in one of the older buildings in town, and the central air, while fabulous in the main hallway, seemed only to leak stingily out of the vent in my suite.