‘‘Dave?’’ I called after him, completely thrown by his quick retreat.
‘‘I’m late,’’ he said over his shoulder as he pulled the door open. ‘‘Call me later.’’ And then he was gone.
I stared blinking at the front door for a bit, then shrugged my shoulders and decided to worry about it later. Still holding the ice to my lip, I went into Dutch’s study and scooted his big leather office chair up to the mahogany desk. I loved the energy in Dutch’s study. It was a beautiful blend of rugged masculinity and perfect comfort, reflecting his personality to a T.
I felt just a hint of guilt about being in here without him—after all, he was a private guy and this was his space. But the files were in here and he’d left me a pad of paper with a note thanking me for my efforts, so obviously he didn’t mind. Still, as I got comfortable, I resolved not to disturb anything and to leave the room as soon as I’d finished with my impressions.
I picked up the stack of files and casually eyed them for a moment. They were bound with a rubber band, and the front cover of each file had a large FBI embossment on it. Briefly, I wondered what Dutch’s boss would think about having his field agent’s psychic girlfriend look into a classified case file, but then I figured that was Dutch’s battle to fight if it ever came up.
With a sigh, I put the files back on the desk and closed my eyes. I had a little bit of prep work to do before I could focus my intuition on the cases in front of me.
There are lots of people who think that psychics have all the answers. The very fact that we’re able to sense things that may not be obvious or even known makes us seem omnipotent. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the intuitives that I know are just as lost as the rest of the world. And that was because intuition can be a tricky thing.
It’s a complex language of metaphors and subtleties. An intuitive message can be crystal clear or completely muddled. And, as a rule, just when you think you’ve got the message figured out, you’ll discover that what you first thought wasn’t really it at all. To use intuition professionally, like I do, requires a whole lot of patience, skill, and concentration. To use intuition professionally also dictates that I be very careful about how I relate my interpretations. A psychic can be just as hurtful to a client as helpful. Go into a reading with the wrong intentions, and you can do some real damage—and unfortunately, there are some out there who use their intuitive gifts to take advantage of the vulnerable.
However, more and more of us legitimate professionals are emerging to reverse the bad reputation that a few shameful charlatans have given psychics.
The idea of responsibility swirled around in the back of my mind as I sat quietly in Dutch’s chair and got ready to turn my radar on. I didn’t want to screw up, especially on these case files, so my focus was especially critical this morning. I began by getting centered, which is simply the act of breathing deeply and really feeling each inhalation and exhalation. Once I was centered, I ran through all of my chakras—those energy points that line up along the spine—then called in the crew.
My crew is made up of roughly five spirit guides. I’m not sure why I have five as opposed to two or three. Maybe the universe thought I needed a few more babysitters than most, and given my ability to get into trouble, five didn’t seem unreasonable at all.
My master guide, or my primary contact, is an energy that identifies himself as Samuel. He’s a terrific guy as far as spirit guides go. Great sense of humor... usually at my expense, but who can blame him? Today, as I felt his energy come forward, I greeted him and asked for his assistance. His response was something along the lines of Hello, Abigail. It’s been a while....
I smirked and did a mental eye roll. ‘‘Yeah, yeah,’’ I said. ‘‘Maybe if you had given me a little heads-up before I got shot, I’d be checking in more often.’’
His reply surprised me. The direction of your path needed to be decided. You could not have chosen if you had not been called to the other side....
I mulled that over for a minute. He seemed to be telling me that I’d needed to die in order to choose to live. Sometimes I hated how complicated this whole big-picture thing was. ‘‘Okay,’’ I said to him. ‘‘I’ll take your word for it, but just so you know—next time just have me choke on a cough drop or something, ’cuz taking a bullet hurts like a son of a bitch.’’
There was laughter in my head, and it wasn’t just from Samuel. We are here to assist, Abigail, whenever you’re ready.
Without opening my eyes, I reached my hands out to the folders on the desk and picked them up one by one, trying to decide in which order to proceed. The middle file called my attention first, so I set the other two aside and laid it flat on the desk, placing both palms down on top of it. In my mind’s eye, I saw a row of slot machines. ‘‘Gambling,’’ I mumbled and opened my eyes to reach for the pad of paper and a pencil. I scribbled that thought down and waited while my radar and my crew did their thing. A series of images flashed in my mind’s eye; one of them was truly confounding.
In my mind I saw a long pipe and some water running through it. The pipe let out into a large pool of water, and at the bottom of the pool were thousands of poker chips. I watched as the water trickled into the pool, and then my attention moved to a plug at the deep end.
A hand appeared in my vision. It was a man’s hand, beefy and hairy-knuckled, and my eye traveled to its pinkie ring, which seemed to catch the light as it glimmered. The hand was tossing poker chips into the water and as the poker chips sank to the bottom of the pool, the hand then reached down and pulled at the plug. I followed the hand up to see who had pulled the plug, and I got a very quick flash of a man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a very large nose. He had dark eyes and I sensed that he was very sneaky.
I wrote the vision down on the notepad and left a space at the bottom of the page. This I headed with the word ‘‘Interpretation’’ and paused as I read back through what I’d already written. Finally I wrote:
My sense is that there is a large pool of money belonging to some sort of fund, like a pension fund for the waterworks department or some sort of utility’s pension fund. There is a central figure here with access to the management of this fund, and he has been stealing from it to supply his gambling addiction. Lately, he has been losing, and if he’s not caught he will dispense with all of the money in short order. The man is of medium height and stocky or portly build. He has salt-and-pepper hair, dark-colored eyes, and a very large nose. There is also a pinkie ring on his right hand in the shape of a horseshoe.
After writing all that down, I tore off the page and paper-clipped it to the front of the file. Next I closed my eyes again, feeling around the desk for the other two files. My right hand hovered over one of them and I felt it pause just above the cover. I heard an alarm go off in my head and pulled the file close, laying both hands on top of it just as I’d done with the first file. In my mind’s eye I saw a big, black, ugly dog. The thing was sinister and had long white fangs that dripped blood. I could feel the goose bumps rise along my arms as the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. This dog was evil and very, very dangerous.
I asked my crew to move past the dog and give me something else, and that was when I saw a pigeon flying around the dog. The dog snapped at the pigeon, but it flew through a window to the safety of a birdcage. Once the pigeon was inside the cage, the door slammed shut and the pigeon paced the floor of the cage nervously.
None of this made sense to me, so I reached out to my crew. ‘‘Guys, I need more than these animal metaphors. Show me something that makes sense.’’ The image quickly changed, and I saw a car parked in front of a large warehouse. The red flash of a strobe light blinked distractedly against the gray brick of the building.
I noticed there was a man inside the car. He too appeared to be in his mid-fifties, with a receding hairline and bushy red eyebrows. He seemed to be staring at the building in front of him, his attention on the blinking strobe lights. Then he sudde
nly glanced out the window to his left and became frightened. The big black dog appeared next to the car, and the man reached over to the seat next to him. He held up a juicy raw steak and tossed it out the window, but the dog ignored it and snapped at the man. A moment later, the car was surrounded by a pack of other dogs, all menacingly snarling, with their hackles raised.
The pack drew near the car as the man inside looked panic-stricken. Then a sheep walked up to the car, though the dogs seemed not to notice it. The man seemed to relax when he saw the sheep, which was bleating earnestly at him. He nodded at the sheep and got out of the car. The moment I saw the door open, I knew it meant trouble, and suddenly, the dogs leaped to attack the man.
My eyes flew open and I yelled, ‘‘Stop!’’ to the empty room. I was breathing hard and shaking. The image had been so vivid and terrifying, and I swore I could almost hear the howls of pleasure as the dogs had torn the man to pieces. I looked down at the file my hands were resting on and noticed that it wasn’t one of the blue FBI folders. This one was manila and the tab read, LUTZ.
‘‘Oh, shit!’’ I said as I realized what I’d just tuned in on. Quickly, I grabbed the pad of paper and began frantically scribbling everything I’d seen in the vision. When I was done, I sat back and circled a line here and there. I stared at the space at the bottom of the page, where I would need to write my interpretation of the vision I’d been shown, and my hand hesitated. I knew in my heart that Bruce Lutz had taken the fall for a crime he had not committed, and further, I knew that Dick Wolfe had not only ordered the hit but had been there when it went down. What I didn’t know was why. My gut was telling me there was more to it than just the fact that Walter and Milo had been nosing around in Wolfe’s business.
There was something key in the vision, something I’d seen about the crime, that was troubling me. It was the sheep, I realized. Obviously it represented someone Walter had known and possibly trusted, but who was it? Who could have lured Walter out of the car when he knew he was surrounded by danger?
I sat there for a long time, trying to decide what to do. If I took this to Dutch, he would likely dismiss my interpretation. And even I had to admit, as I read back through the description of my vision that a pigeon being snapped at by a big dog and ending up trapped in a birdcage didn’t exactly look like it should clear Lutz of the murder. But this was how my intuition worked. It was partly visual and partly just knowing when I was right on target. I knew I was right about Lutz. But I also knew that in order to convince my boyfriend, I’d need a lot more than descriptions of big dogs, a sheep, and a pigeon. If I went to him with only that, he was likely to ask me if I’d also seen a partridge in a pear tree.
I tore the page from the notepad and folded it, then tucked it securely in my back pocket. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I could decide on that later. For now, I was so drained that what I really needed was a nap. I got up from the desk and headed into the living room, where I sank down onto Dutch’s soft leather couch and fell almost immediately to sleep.
‘‘Abs.’’ I heard a deep baritone whisper in my ear and I felt a tug on my arm. ‘‘Come on, honey, wake up.’’
‘‘Huh?’’ I said, my eyes snapping open. ‘‘What’s going on?’’
Dutch laughed as he stroked my hair. ‘‘You’ve been out cold since I walked in.’’
‘‘Ohmigod!’’ I said, sitting up straight. ‘‘Is it after six?’’
‘‘No, babe. It’s noon. I came home for lunch to see what you’d come up with on my files.’’
I rubbed my eyes and shook my head, trying to clear the fog from my tired mind. ‘‘I only got through one of the files,’’ I said. ‘‘It really wore me out.’’
‘‘Well,’’ he said, holding up the folder with the paper attached, ‘‘looks like you hit pay dirt here.’’
‘‘Yeah?’’ I asked.
Dutch nodded and stood up. He took my hand and pulled me up from the couch. ‘‘Come on. I’ll make us some lunch and fill you in.’’
We ate hot dogs and potato chips as Dutch told me about the county waterworks pension fund. ‘‘Two weeks ago we got a tip from a retired waterworks employee that he’d noticed a small change in the pension’s monthly yield, but the corresponding rate assigned to the fund should have netted a little more cash.’’
‘‘How much more?’’
Dutch smiled. ‘‘Five dollars and sixty-seven cents.’’
‘‘Someone’s watching their pennies,’’ I said.
‘‘Hey, he’s retired. What else is there for him to do?’’
‘‘Good point.’’
‘‘Anyway, the file could have been tabled for a while, but this guy’s son-in-law happens to work at the Bureau, and he made enough noise to get one of our accountants to look into it. Sure enough, the old guy is right. The yield is off, and it’s been off for three of the past six months.’’
‘‘How many people receive pensions from that fund?’’
‘‘About six thousand,’’ Dutch said.
I whistled. ‘‘Times five and a half dollars every month—that’s big money over the long haul.’’
‘‘Exactly,’’ he said with a wink at me. ‘‘Which is why the case ended up with me. I’ve been going through all the people who have both direct and indirect access to the fund, but whoever’s been pulling from it has been doing a great job of covering their tracks. The guy you describe here sounds exactly like Max Goodyear. I interviewed him early on and thought he seemed a little nervous—but most people do get nervous when they’re sitting across from me.’’
‘‘Oh, the things you do to people,’’ I said and fanned myself.
Dutch threw a potato chip at me. ‘‘Goodyear’s one of the financial advisers assigned to the pension fund,’’ he continued. ‘‘But his personal bank records keep coming back clean. There’s been no spike in activity, either up or down. The guy owns a modest house, drives a Volvo, pays his bills on time, and doesn’t cheat on his wife.
‘‘Also, as far as we can tell, he doesn’t have direct access to the fund, which would mean that if you’re right, and he’s been gambling it away, he’s got to have an accomplice.’’
I smirked. ‘‘If I’m right,’’ I repeated.
Dutch stood and picked up our plates from the table. ‘‘I’d love to sound more confident, Edgar, but we’ve been all over his personal finances and there’s nothing out of the ordinary.’’
I felt a little buzz in the back of my mind as my radar kicked back on. ‘‘Does Goodyear have any family besides his wife? Like children?’’
‘‘Nope. Just him and the missus,’’ Dutch said, setting the dishes in the sink.
‘‘Huh,’’ I said, puzzling that one over. ‘‘You sure?’’
Dutch turned around, leaned against the sink, and crossed his arms. ‘‘Yeah. At least, that’s what I remember. You thinking I should double-check?’’
‘‘Yes. There’s something off. He’s got a kid, Dutch, and that’s your missing link.’’
‘‘Okay, I’ll look into it. In the meantime, if you get any thoughts on Goodyear’s accomplice, jot ’em down, okay?’’
‘‘Gotcha,’’ I said and grinned at him. Just then my cell went off. I answered after glancing at the caller ID ‘‘Hey, Candice.’’
‘‘Afternoon!’’ she said jovially. ‘‘Are you ready to swing by your office and talk figures?’’
‘‘I’ll be there in ten,’’ I said and clicked off.
Dutch came over to me and wrapped me in his arms for a quick snuggle. ‘‘I need to get back to work too,’’ he said as he kissed the top of my head. ‘‘Thanks for your help, sweethot,’’ he added in his best Humphrey Bogart voice.
I squeezed him and let go. ‘‘You can pay me back by taking me shoe shopping this weekend,’’ I said. ‘‘Right after we get you that haircut.’’
‘‘Can’t I just give you my credit card and tell you to keep it under fifty dollars?’’
I la
ughed. ‘‘Where do you think I shop for shoes? Bucky’s Bargain Barn of Flip-flops?’’
‘‘I like flip-flops,’’ he said as he hung an arm over my shoulder and walked me to the door. ‘‘They’re sexy.’’
‘‘Ah,’’ I said. We paused on the front step. ‘‘Well, then, if you get excited over flip-flops, just wait till you see me in a pair of Jimmy Choos.’’
‘‘You’re turning into your sister,’’ he said, and gave me another smooch on the cheek. ‘‘Which reminds me—she called while you were napping.’’
‘‘Thanks,’’ I said, getting into my SUV. Before closing the door, I added, ‘‘I’ll call her back tonight and she can give me some pointers on what styles are in this season.’’
I drove across town to the big tan professional building that houses my office. The structure used to be one of the largest in downtown Royal Oak, but in the past few years so much new development had cropped up that the Washington Square Office Plaza now found itself in rather mixed company—much like a middle-aged swinging single at a trendy twentysomething nightclub. Still, I loved the old guy. It had character and personality. It also had a terrific landlord who’d hardly made a fuss about all the recent trouble originating in suite 222. There had been serial killers and blood, Mafia types and more blood, psychopaths and yes... a little more blood, and through all of it my rent had gone up only fifty bucks.
I parked in my usual slot in the parking garage across the street and hurried to the front lobby, glancing at my watch as I pushed through the doors. I headed up the two flights of stairs to my floor, then down the polished marble hallway to the second suite on the right. Candice was already there. ‘‘Hey!’’ she said with a wave. ‘‘God, Abs! You look fabulous for a girl who’s been shot.’’
I smiled tightly and pulled at the collar of my blouse. Physically, I remained pretty much the same as the last time she’d seen me—five-foot-six, one-twenty give or take, with very long brown hair and blue eyes. The only real change was a nasty scar on the right side of my chest that was sore to the touch and ugly as hell. ‘‘No worse for wear,’’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘‘But you look completely different,’’ I added as I took in her longer hair and its slightly darker color. ‘‘Your hair looks fantastic.’’