Page 20 of The Psychic

“I’ll get rid of that,” Shana said, grabbing Ronnie’s coffee that was only half drunk.

Ronnie started to protest, but Shana was determined to carry both cups as she negotiated a weather-beaten wooden stairway to the building’s third floor.

The place needed new paint, a new roof, new siding and new windows, and that was just the exterior.

Inside, Ronnie caught a whiff of dampness and a glance around a tidy but tired living room and open concept kitchen.

“You sure you’re okay?” Ronnie asked as Shana set the two paper coffee cups on the chipped Formica counter.

“I told you that Evan can help me from here. Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it. Evan doesn’t drive much.”

“Okay.”

Shana had given Ronnie a further inside view of her surprising relationship with Evan Caldwell on the ride from the hospital.

Though things had faded with Sloan, she’d been there for Evan and he for her, in turn, apparently.

Their friendship had endured and strengthened over the years.

And though he rarely got behind the wheel of his hand-controlled vehicle, they found ways to get together.

Shana went on to reveal that she had worked at a large Portland department store through the years and risen to run the women’s department, aided by Evan’s business acumen as he grew a regional investment business.

When her store merged with another and she lost that job, it was Evan who came to her rescue.

Shana was currently seeking a job at Galen’s law firm, which is how Galen had roped her into process-serving for the firm and she’d landed on Ronnie’s doorstep.

Between the lines there had been another thread running throughout this explanation: Evan was connected to Sloan Hart, their friendship having endured as well, and Shana wanted a connection to Sloan.

When Ronnie’s name came up she’d been curious to meet her again, the girl who, at barely ten years old had pronounced she was going to marry Sloan Hart.

“I told Evan about you,” Shana had admitted. “He remembered you screaming that day. He said it was kind of weird that after all these years I connected with you not long after Sloan moved back to Portland. It’s kind of like we’re all coming back together in some odd, cosmic way, y’know?”

Ronnie had made appropriate “huh” and “you think so?” comments to what really sounded like Shana still obsessing over Sloan in ways that seemed almost pathological.

Ronnie kept her recent meeting with him to herself, sensing that would not be appreciated.

Though Shana didn’t say it—she didn’t have to say it, as it was obvious—the message was Sloan Hart was hers and hers alone.

It seemed like this tale of love and devotion was entirely one-sided.

“Any prescriptions or anything else I can get you?” Ronnie asked, preparing to leave.

“No. Thanks. Evan will help if I need anything.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

On the way back to her own apartment, Ronnie was overcome by weariness. A long day. A lot of people and a lot of distractions, but still the overriding need was to find the woman in the clearing.

Maybe there is no one. Maybe it’s all just smoke and mirrors. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway. In that, Sloan Hart is right.

“Sloan Hart,” she murmured aloud, turning into her apartment complex.

She went to bed still thinking about him and he ended up haunting her dream, a lover who stayed just out of reach.

What was Mary Jo’s transportation?

The question kept interrupting Cooper’s sleep Thursday night and was the one he woke up with in the wee hours of Friday morning.

As he lay next to a sleeping Jamie, Cooper thought about what Stephen Kirshner hadn’t said—wouldn’t say, actually—but Cooper had seen two cars in the Kirshner driveway when he’d stopped in to interrogate Mary Jo’s husband about her disappearance.

Those were the same two cars he’d seen when he and Jamie had gone to their home to meet with them about Mary Jo’s possible surrogacy months earlier.

So … how had she left? A lift from a friend? A cab? A ride share? She likely hadn’t traveled on foot, at least not far, considering she was eight months pregnant.

What was likely was that Stephen Kirshner knew where she was, but wasn’t telling.

He acted as if his wife just up and left in the dark of night, or the bright of day or in a puff of smoke …

as if it were some big mystery. But that’s not what happened in real life, and Cooper, who’d tried hard not to strong-arm the man into telling what he knew, or at least suspected, was through messing around.

A deadline was approaching. Time quickly passing.

He needed to find Mary Jo and he needed to find her now.

He slid a glance at his wife and saw Jamie was breathing regularly, sleeping peacefully after nearly coming unglued when he’d told her about Mary Jo’s disappearance.

Not that he blamed Jamie. He, too, was worried and angry and scared.

What the hell was up with the surrogate?

Where was she? God, he hoped beyond hope that the baby— his baby, Jamie’ s baby—was okay.

He’d called Verbena. He’d wanted to ask his partner to check cab companies and ride shares to see if anyone had picked up someone at the Kirshners’ address.

But Verbena wasn’t on the job. She was with her mother, who was not responding well to cancer treatments.

The department had a new temporary hire: Detective Sloan Hart.

Cooper knew the man slightly. They’d both graduated from River Glen High, about five years apart.

But he didn’t know him well enough to ask this kind of favor, and he did know better than to leave digital footprints for Chief Duncan to follow and find out he was trying to use department resources for a personal problem.

A personal problem, he thought darkly as he took a shower, dressed and quietly went downstairs in the predawn hours.

He didn’t want to wake Jamie, or anyone, although he heard Duchess whine from Emma’s room.

He almost let the dog out but Twink shot out of their bedroom at the same moment and trotted down the stairs ahead of him, so he determined he would get the dog once the cat was taken care of, otherwise the animals’ feud, if that’s what it was—sometimes he suspected it was just their favorite game—blew up into wild barking and hissing and ended up waking the entire household.

Twink cried at the back door and Cooper let her out. Jamie wanted him to cut a cat door somewhere in the house, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Now, he started making coffee.

A scramble of wild claws on hardwood announced that Duchess was wide-awake and was suddenly running down the stairs. No doubt Emma had released her.

Duchess bounded into the kitchen, wagging her tail wildly and wiggling, a flurry of brown fur. “Hey, girl.”

Whining softly, she placed her head under his hand, demanding to be petted. He rubbed her ears then opened the back door to let her outside. As he did the cat whizzed back inside, making a beeline for the Christmas tree.

“Three-ring circus,” Cooper muttered as Duchess galloped outside to the black morning. No sign of light yet, but at least the icy rain had stopped, however briefly.

He snapped on the porch light and watched as the dog did several loops around the wet grass of the back yard. She romped and chased a scolding squirrel that scurried up the gnarled bark of a fir tree.

Cooper took a minute, breathing in moist air thick with the scents of fir and pine and the dank loam and grass. He needed to remain calm and steady, have a clear head and not let his emotions get in the way as he tracked down Mary Jo.

When the dog had quit her morning explorations, he wiped off her muddy feet and opened the door for her to go back inside where Twink, thankfully, had not climbed the Christmas tree, nor disturbed any of the low-hanging ornaments.

He finished scooping fresh grounds into the coffeemaker, pushed the button, and as the machine began to gurgle and hiss, he considered what he’d have for breakfast for what he suspected was going to be a long day.

Cereal, he decided, then filled a bowl and added milk before pouring himself a cup of the coffee that had finished brewing. After a few sips, he measured kibbles into Duchess’s bowl which she, ever ravenous, pounced upon.

They ate in relative silence apart from the crunching of their meals and he considered the day to come, how he was going to find Mary Jo.

For starters, as soon as the sun came up, he was going to begin canvassing the rural neighborhood around the Kirshner home and see if anyone had noticed anything about Mary Jo’s sudden departure.

Ronnie woke up to the sounds of her own strangled moaning and the fading memory of Evan Caldwell’s leering ghost, rising from his body.

Don’t go in the water …

Her heart was pounding triple time. She hadn’t had that particular dream in years, but it still could blast her sleep to smithereens.

And the admonition to stay out of the water …

it was a woman’s voice. Like it was that day at The Pond.

Was it her mother’s? That’s how she’d viewed it as a ten-year-old, but had that just been a young girl’s deepest wish?

She lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, willing her heartbeat to slow down. She supposed she’d manifested this particular dream because of Shana’s comments about Evan.

Or, maybe coming face-to-face with Sloan did it?

Throwing back the covers, she headed for the bathroom and a shower.

Half an hour later she was dressed and ready to go.

She had time to stop by Lucille’s, the diner in Laurelton, the bedroom community next door to River Glen, and pick up a coffee or sit down for a plate of hash browns and eggs, a choice she often made when she worked through lunch.

Although today she had a date with Brandy … so coffee only.