Page 9 of The Psychic

Ronnie drove into the basement lot beneath her father’s law office building, a four-story brick structure with a garage built into the hillside at the rear of the building, the visitors’ parking spilling from the covered back lot into the open air like some giant gray tongue.

She managed to find a parking spot, selecting a space near the stairwell, then as the engine cooled and ticked, she took a moment to collect her thoughts.

The manila envelope Shana had handed Ronnie was now lying on the passenger seat. Heaving a sigh, Ronnie reached for it. Might as well see what it said.

Opening the flap, she pulled out the thin stack of papers.

She flipped through and saw Galen’s signature already on the bottom with a flourish.

He had a tendency to overstate his position on everything.

That was another thing that had gotten him in trouble at Tormelle reception at the front curve.

Dawn Michaels was not at the reception desk, but her latte from Bean There, Done That, a local coffee bar, was.

Ronnie was friends with Dawn, about the only coworker she could say that about, but was glad nonetheless to sneak to her office down the east side corridor unobserved.

She had some thinking to do. The same thinking she’d been indulging in before Shana had pounded on her door.

Who was the woman in the clearing? Was she dead? Was it real?

And why did you see her superimposed on Shana at the crash site?

Tossing the manila envelope atop her desk’s walnut surface, she watched it skid to the edge.

She walked to the window. On her side of the building a narrow alley ran between Tormelle & Quick Law Firm and the nearly twin office building next door.

Those red brick offices were four stories high, almost as tall as the River Glen Penthouses, on the far end of the main street, with two more stories than their own building.

She could hear a muffled conversation going on in the office next to hers, Martin Calgheny’s.

Martin was an estate lawyer and the only one at the firm who actively sought out Ronnie’s help on cases.

He liked to have her with him when interviewing a prospective client or when he was giving heirs the good or bad news about an inheritance.

Twice while they’d been holding a meeting about the division of an estate Ronnie had known what was going to happen, in her psychic way.

Twice she’d seen the future spool out and had tried to do something about it.

Twice no one had paid attention to her warnings, and that included P.I.

Jesse James Taft who, she thought, was lucky to still be above ground with the murderous intent those women had in for him weeks earlier.

Snatching up the divorce paper file again, Ronnie flipped it open, grabbed a pen from her desk drawer and signed her name in a small, precise hand, as un-flourishy as possible. She then grabbed her cell and texted Galen: I’ve signed.

Immediately she got a response: Bring the file over at noon and I’ll take you to lunch.

She scoffed. I’ll leave it at the front desk. Pick it up whenever.

Please, Veronica. Pretty, pretty please.

Asshole.

When you put it that way … no.

Oh, come on. I owe you a big apology.

Well, there was a new one. He did owe her an apology, but that didn’t mean he had the wherewithal to figure that out. What was he playing at?

She gazed hard at the text, trying to see behind the words, but though she waited several minutes there was no help from the psychic world. Figured.

She made a snap decision: I’ll be there.

In the waiting room of Tormelle & Quick Law Firm, Detective Cooper Haynes’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

Pulling out the cell, he glanced at the caller.

Taft, returning his call. Without hesitation he slid the button to off.

He’d wanted to talk to Taft before he entered the law offices, but it was too late now.

Now, the receptionist—young, tall and commanding—whose nameplate read Dawn Michaels, was seated at her desk and seemingly busy with scheduling, glancing repeatedly at her computer screen, scribbling notes and pressing her lips together as if in annoyance at what she was viewing.

Cooper had caught a glance at that screen and seen her juggling names and appointment times before she’d looked up at him and asked how she could help him.

“Cooper Haynes to see Paula Prescott,” he’d told her with a smile. He’d been told more than once that his “cop” presence had grown too noticeable and off-putting, so he was working to curb that.

She looked at her screen and nodded. “She’ll be right with you.”

He watched her from his seat as he waited.

She was dark-skinned and dark-eyed and reminded him of his partner, Elena Verbena, oozing with no-nonsense, “don’t waste my time” attitude.

The lawyer he was meeting was of the same mold, a fifty-something white woman with short, blond-gray hair, a habit of staring hard while she listened to what you said, as if she were cataloguing every syllable, and a surgically precise way of speaking that let you know who was in charge.

He’d known Paula for years but this was the first time he’d come to her for personal advice.

“Check with Veronica Quick. Jonas Quick’s daughter,” Taft had suggested. “Tormelle and Quick Law Firm,” when he’d learned of Cooper’s dilemma.

Cooper had immediately wished he hadn’t told Taft about Mary Jo’s disappearance. He’d responded to the P.I., “I need a lawyer.” Not a supposed psychic.