Page 6 of The Psychic

The woman process server managed to wrench open the door of her gray SUV and climbed outside. She swayed for a bit in the rushing wind. She, too, had a gash across her forehead and regarded Ronnie dazedly. She’d opened her coat and her large breasts were already drenched with rain.

“You all right?” Ronnie asked, though clearly she wasn’t.

She looked around as if she hadn’t heard. She was—

Shana. From The Pond all those years ago. Shana Lloyd and Sloan Hart.

That’s why she seemed so familiar. She was Sloan Hart’s high school girlfriend. Now a process server? Twenty years on she’d aged hard.

And she was about to walk into traffic, while the drivers of the first two cars were still just standing in the rain and the sound of sirens’ wails grew closer.

Shana took a step toward the road.

“Stop!” Ronnie grabbed for her. Missed her arm, but Shana seemed to hear because she suddenly froze, though her legs wobbled. She turned her head to look at Ronnie, her eyes moving like they were in a game of marbles.

Ronnie suddenly felt a flood of emotion.

Desire and love and sadness. Coming from Shana.

A full-on sensory rush that narrowed into a picture of Shana in a wood-paneled office, kneeling beneath a desk, Galen in the chair with her head bobbing up and down as she pleasured him, his head thrown back, eyes closed, his hands in her hair. Shana … and Galen ?

Ronnie saw Shana running her fingers through Ronnie’s soon-to-be ex’s prematurely gray hair, her head thrown back, mewling cries issuing from her parted lips. Or … what?

Ronnie blinked against the rain.

The vision blew apart like fairy dust. Instead Shana stood in front of Ronnie, wet and bedraggled, blood running down her cheek from the gash on her head.

Immediately Ronnie wasn’t sure of what she’d seen. The vision didn’t have that sensation of something creeping out of the dark to leave its ominous message. This one was more … indistinct. Something maybe true, maybe not. The visions that were real had heft to them.

Ronnie had visited a psychic once herself, kind of as a joke, kind of as a tutorial.

She’d been curious about what the seer would say, which had been that Ronnie would have one child with the love of her life.

However, the psychic Ronnie had seen had since been mentioned in a lawsuit in which another client, a woman, had learned in the session that she would live a long and healthy life.

Within six months that client had died in a mountain climbing accident.

“Do you see her?” Shana asked.

“What? Who?”

She took another step forward, walking directly in front of a car that was edging around the mess of traffic, just as that driver hit the gas. Ronnie screamed at the same moment the driver slammed on his brakes.

Untouched, nevertheless Shana collapsed in a heap onto the wet and muddy shoulder.

Ronnie jumped forward but Tesla-man was faster and was at Shana’s side in a flash. He bent over her as Shana lay on the ground, staring up at the sky, rain running down her head as people, victims and onlookers, gathered around.

Then the scene changed.

For a heartbeat the woman lying in the clearing from Ronnie’s earlier vision was superimposed over Shana’s body. Familiar … so familiar. And somewhere a dog was barking.

Ronnie held her breath. In her mind’s eye, she saw the two women as one, a weird vision that was so damned real. She half expected the vision to play out, to say something to her, to mean something. But no. It remained unchanged. Nothing happened.

In a blink, it was gone—the woman from the clearing having vanished.

Shana was back to looking like Shana. Not moving. Quiet.

Tesla-man was leaning over her. The dog had traded barking for howling. Ronnie’s heart galloped as if it were trying to escape her rib cage.

“She’s breathing,” said Tesla-man. “She’s alive! Come on, lady. You’re okay. Come back! Can you hear me? You’re okay.”

And still the dog howled incessantly.

“Can someone help that dog?” Ronnie muttered, glancing around at the various knots of people who were either in the accident or had stopped to help. “Maybe it’s trapped.”

“Hey, we got a real situation here. This woman needs help.” Tesla-man gave Ronnie a scrutinizing glare before turning his attention to the fast approaching rescue vehicles.

“I know. But it sounds like it’s in pain.”

His dark eyes clapped back to her. “I don’t hear any dog, ma’am.”

It was Ronnie’s turn to stare. “You don’t?”

“No, ma’am.” His eyes narrowed as he studied her, assessing. “Are you all right?”

“I wasn’t in the accident. I’m here to help,” Ronnie assured him, but was starting to feel that sense of unease that crept over her when she couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t.

It happened rarely. Most of the time when she surfaced from a vision she was fully aware again.

Now, though, Tesla-man was regarding her in that way that said they were experiencing two different realities.

And the pained yowls of the dog had stopped. Ronnie swallowed hard, trying to concentrate on what was really happening. The wail of the sirens cut off as if strangled as the ambulances arrived on scene. The moment their tires stopped, paramedics leapt from their vehicles to take charge.

Thank God.

Still wondering about the vision, Ronnie waited while Shana was tucked into an ambulance, and then returned to her Escape. Drenched and shivering, rain still running down her face, she thought of the dead woman in the clearing. The black void was sending her a message that she wasn’t getting.

Who was she?

What had happened to her?

Why had her image melded with Shana’s as she lay on the cold, wet shoulder of the road?

And what, if anything, should Ronnie do next?

There was no clear answer.

The night was dark and cold. The cabin was a little more than a lean-to shelter these days.

The woman shivered and counted her many sins.

She’d made mistakes, vast mistakes as it turned out.

She wasn’t good at reading human nature and it was going to kill her …

maybe … if she didn’t think of a plan of escape.

The dog whined softly and she pulled it close. It wasn’t her dog but she’d taken it with her for protection.

A chilly wind clattered against the cabin, trembling the walls.

She could smell dirt and damp weeds, saw tendrils reaching from beneath the rotting floorboards.

She couldn’t stay here long. She had to move …

run … She’d racked her brain. Who could she call to help her? Dear God, there was no good answer.

The only person, and it was an insane longshot, the longshot of longshots, was Veronica.

Clutching the dog, burying her face in its black fur, she sent a message into the universe:

I’m in trouble. He’s coming to kill me. I don’t want to die. Help me!

Was that a car engine? She raised her head in alarm, heart galumphing. She didn’t move. The dog growled low in its throat and she quietly shushed it. They’d bonded in their short time together and the animal complied, softly snuffling her ear.

She couldn’t hear the engine now.

Was it real?

Had someone cut it?

Were those footsteps?

Panicked, she strained to listen.

The door of the cabin had a latch on the inside.

Not much to keep her safe. But something.

And yet …

To her horror she watched as a small stick was inserted beneath the latch and pushed upward, releasing it with a small metallic click.

She trembled. Her hand moved to clasp the rock she’d placed beside herself. If the dog couldn’t save her, it would be her last defense.

The dog was quivering all over. Its skin sliding beneath her other hand, beneath its soft fur. The door opened and a black figure stood there. “You called?” said a voice filled with real concern.

Surprise flooded her. Then shock. Full on shock. “You … ? You … found me?”

The dog started barking. Sharp. Insistent. Barking and barking.

Slam!

The world went black.

The next thing she knew she was lying face up in a clearing.

A faint moon glowed behind a cloud, a momentary respite from the rain.

She wanted that rain now. Desperately. Wanted its cold wash on her face.

Needed it to clear her mind. She envisioned diamond droplets falling on her face, rinsing all the bad stuff away.

Then hands circled her throat. Gloved hands. “Why?” she asked but it might have been in her mind.

The last thing she remembered was the frenzied barking of the dog, somewhere far away …