if she had that kind of power, then she should have been able to save Jordan.
For a while she’d been able to convince herself that she was nothing special. During her brief stint on a psychic hotline, she’d been wrong more often than right, garnering some unsatisfied customers.
A dream. A horrible dream. A vision. Of a little girl bound to an iron bed in a dark, damp basement. There had been more. A house with plywood over the windows. A huge, misshapen tree.
She’d told the police about her dream. Using her descriptions, they were able to find the house, find the child.
Cleo had begged them not to mention her involvement to anyone, but when the little girl was found in the spot Cleo had described, somehow her name was leaked to the press. The police department scrambled, trying to honor Cleo’s request for anonymity, but somehow everything got turned around and soon her integrity was being questioned-which was better than being hailed as the next Jeane Dixon. Cleo so wanted to be the fraud Daniel Sinclair accused her of being.
Chief Bennett repeated her earlier question. Cleo sidestepped it the way she always sidestepped it. “I think everybody has psychic ability. They just haven’t learned how to tap into it.”
That seemed to be the answer Jo was looking for, because she immediately switched subjects-from psychics to Daniel Sinclair.
“He was the head of a hostage negotiation unit in California,” Jo explained, as if Cleo had asked about him. For some reason-maybe it was the small-town way-Jo seemed bent on filling Cleo in on things that had nothing to do with the missing key and were really none of Cleo’s business.
“He was good at what he did. One of the best, and I’m not just saying that because his mother was my friend. Not every hostage situation can go the way we want it to.” Jo slowed for a turn, waving to a group of kids waiting to cross the street. “Danny had a high success-to-failure ratio. One of the highest in the country, I believe. But then one time-I don’t know the details-two kids and their mother got killed.”
Jo turned down Main Street. They moved past barrels of red geraniums and park benches painted dark green to match the canvas awnings lining both sides of the street. Two young mothers stood talking in front of the post office, one with a baby on her hip, the other pushing a stroller.
“But, being Danny, he blamed himself,” Jo continued.
Cleo didn’t want to hear any more about Daniel Sinclair. Not because it was too horrible to bear; she’d seen horrible things, had lived through horrible things. No, it was because she didn’t want to know about him, about his personal life, his triumphs, his pain. She didn’t want to know
“Just shortly after that, Lucille died. Lucille once told me she wasn’t afraid of death, but she was afraid of what would happen to Beau if she died. So Danny moved back home to take care of Beau. But if you ask me, it was the other way around half the time. Danny was drinking. A lot. He’d stay drunk for days, and Beau would take care of him. So I offered Danny a job. It keeps him out of trouble most of the time, but he still goes on the occasional bender. Beau keeps me informed.”
To Cleo’s relief, they finally arrived at the police station, a one-story white building located next to the courthouse and across the street from the fire station. Jo swung the squad car into a parking place reserved for the chief of police. Then they made their way along a wide sidewalk, up a few steps, and through heavy double doors.
Inside, Cleo was introduced to Parker Reed, the secretary. “He keeps this place running,” Jo said.
And it was quite a place. In one corner was a potted palm that had grown all the way to the ceiling, had taken a turn, and was now heading toward a nearby window. In another corner were a recliner, a lamp, and a table with two potted and profusely blooming purple African violets. Underfoot were woven throw rugs similar to the rugs Cleo had noticed at the Sinclair house.
“I make these rugs in my spare time,” Jo said. “I take old clothes, old sheets, old blankets, even old plastic bread wrappers, and cut everything into strips, then weave it. I’ll show you my loom sometime.”
“Okay,” Cleo said vaguely.
Was it her lack of sleep that was making things seem so weird? First the creepy motel room and the bad dreams, now Jo and her police station that looked like an old lady’s living room.
“Danny’s office.” Jo flung open a door, revealing a cramped room with a single small window, a desk, a phone, and not much else-and, thankfully, no Sinclair. Next was Jo’s office, a more lavish and personal version of the front room. Mixed in with the clutter on her desk were small, cheap picture frames, the kind you could pick up at a discount store for a couple of bucks. On the wall were more photos, many of Jo herself shaking hands with this person or that person, none of them anybody Cleo immediately recognized. Something told her if she showed the slightest interest in anything in the room, she would end up getting a monologue about the item in question.
Jo crossed the room to a wall safe, dialed the combination, and opened the thick door. “Here’s where I kept the key,” Jo said, standing to one side in case Cleo got the notion to peer into the darkness.
“Does anyone else know the safe’s combination?” Cleo asked.
“You aren’t here to launch an investigation,” Jo said, seeming surprised by the direction Cleo’s mind had taken. “The obvious questions are my job. I just want you to concentrate on that key. I don’t want your head cluttered with extraneous details.”
“I’m simply trying to get an idea of what’s going on.”
“I want you to get some vibes from this vault, then we’ll go across the street and talk to Harvey to see if you pick anything up there.”
Never in her life had Cleo picked up anything from an inanimate object. There had been the missing little girl, but it had never required a conscious effort on her part. She’d never actively tried to get information. It had just come, unbidden.
Leaving the safe ajar, Jo went to her desk, sat down, pulled out a huge black ledger, wrote a check, and handed it to Cleo.
Five thousand dollars.
“Five thousand in advance, another five thousand if you come up with the key. Fair?” Jo asked.
Cleo carefully tucked the check into a pocket in the side of her bag. “Fair.” Oh, God. Why had Jo paid her now, when there was nothing more Cleo wanted than to get far, far away?
Cleo moved to stand directly in front of the safe, the dark, deep pit level with her face. She reached up and touched the cold metal of the door.
“Feel anything?” Jo whispered from just beyond Cleo’s shoulder, inches from her ear.
Startled, Cleo jumped, her heart racing.
Peering into the darkness, Cleo put a hand on either side of the safe and closed her eyes. Careful to keep her expression blank, she silently counted to twenty, all the while thinking about the five-thousand-dollar check in her bag. Five thousand dollars. In her mind’s eye, she pictured a home. Nothing lavish. She didn’t ask for much. Just a tidy room with waxed floors and sparkling windows that let the sun in. In her imagination, there were no cockroaches or creepy landlords or crackheads living in dark hallways. In her daydream, the sun was warm on her face.
She turned the corner and found herself in a kitchen. There, above a stainless-steel double sink, was a potted geranium, its red blooms cascading happily down the green tiled backsplash. Near the back door, sweaters and jackets hung from pegs.
Five thousand dollars would get her such a place, at least for a while.
Cleo let out a heavy sigh and slowly opened her eyes.
“Well?” Jo asked expectantly.
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you feel anything?”
“I need time to digest the images.”
Jo shut the heavy door and gave the lock a couple of spins. “Let’s go talk to Harvey. Maybe you’ll pick up on something there.”
They found Harvey polishing the fire truck. On the surface, he seemed like your average middle-aged guy. But when he began talking, it quickly became apparent there would be no sidestepping the issue. His lazy drawl might
