by Lisa Freed
Pulling my phone out I tried messaging and then calling Lance. I had come to his house wondering if Victor had done anything to him and seeing his house so dark had my internal alarm wailing. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Lance needed me.
Going up to his door, I alternated between pounding and pressing on his doorbell. Then I kept my finger on the bell while pounding. Nothing.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, I then let myself into Lance's house with the key that he had so thoughtfully given me before our blowup. In design and layout, it was identical to mine. But where mine was bright, his was dark and stuffy. No wonder we spent the majority of our time at my house, something I had never given much thought to until now. Whose idea had that been, mine or his? Subconsciously or not?
My nose led me to the kitchen where the trashcan overflowed onto the floor. This was not at all like the fastidious Lance I knew.
Gingerly, I made my way upstairs calling his name every other step. I didn't expect to find him here; the house had that stale emptiness that homes acquired after you've been on vacation for a week.
His bedroom was trashed. Clothes erupting out of the large walk in closet, one heavy dresser toppled over, a beautiful wooden men's valet that must have stood on top of the dresser was overturned and splintered on the floor. Expensive watches spilled out of it, I spied a heavy gold Rolex in the mix.
What the hell happened?
Turning in a slow circle to take in all the damage, I spotted his phone near the closet. Kneeling down, I picked it up. The display screen was cracked yet it turned on, flashing the low battery message briefly before the main menu was barely visible through the smashed screen. I put in his code and it opened up. Forty-three messages, seventy-four missed calls. Yikes!
I tapped on a few of the messages, my heart thudding harder with each one.
Missed work. Missed appointments. Missed dispositions. They all screamed what I was thinking. Lance, where are you?
I did another quick scan of the room, taking in the fiction books in a tidy pile on the right-side nightstand, a container of antacids, a large bottle of skin lotion, naughty, naughty Lance.
Walking over, I pulled open the nightstand drawer to confirm my suspicions, yep, old school skin magazines. And a wide array of condoms. That stopped me.
In our time together, I had never thought of Lance having other women, not that we had an agreed upon monogamous relationship but I wasn't out sleeping with other men. And we had never used condoms because I was on the pill. Pretty foolish on my part it seemed. Had he have gotten laid in the several weeks since I had stormed out on him?
Could this all be the result of a scorned girlfriend? Well a second one, not me. Nah, it just didn't fit with the Lance I had been starting to know.
Still I paid particular care when looking through the other nightstand.
I found a velvet bag and curiosity demanded I find out what was inside. Loosening the tiny drawstrings, I turned the bag over, dumping out its contents. A silver chain with a pendant. No, not just a simple pendant, a delicate silver setting embraced the red piece of sea glass Lance had found. I clutched it to my chest. He had had it made into a necklace for me. And I had dumped him. I stood there letting my emotions wash over me in stormy waves for several seconds. Then I had to put them aside to be dealt with later.
Right now, figuring out what was going on with Lance was the main issue, everything else could be worried over later.
I ticked off what I knew. No Lance, but his phone was here. He had missed work for days judging by the phone calls and messages, yet he must have still been here with that nasty trashcan downstairs. So where had he gone? And what about his wallet? If that was here then I had every right to be very concerned.
I went back to the valet, turning it over and in doing so dumped out a few more pricier looking watches, though not as nice as the Rolex that had been carelessly left. Robbery was not a motive unless the thief was an idiot. A few pairs of cuff links, a bunch of business cards, some with scribbled notes on the backs, but again no wallet.
Sitting down on Lance's king-sized bed, I closed my eyes and concentrated. Frustration, loneliness, a brief intake of a heavenly floral scented perfume, I could feel my inner jealousy snap to attention at that, but I pushed on.
Zilch. At least nothing that could tell me where he was or why he had gone MIA.
As if my inner forces had made things happen my phone began to go off.
“Hello?”
“Teresa, it’s all so clear to me now what I need to do.”
My heart jumped up into my throat. “Lance?”
“No,” he replied.
“Victor?”
“Yes,” he said cheerfully.
“What are you doing with Lance?”
“I’m not hurting him. I just need him for a little bit. Hopefully this will be the last time.”
“What do you mean?” My hand was gripping the phone-hard. I forced myself to relax slightly.
“Just that. I want something a little more permanent. I want a body of my own. So, Lance and I are going on a little trip. Oops, the flight is starting to board, talk to you soon. Love you!” He rang off, leaving me enraged.
I couldn’t believe he would do this and then have the nerve to openly tell me he loved me. Damn the man!
What was he up to and where was he taking Lance? Lance had a passport, that I knew. Shortly before we broke up, he had mentioned a trip to Mexico to go snorkeling. He had been happy we both already had passports so no need to wait on the processing time for one. Since I still hadn’t found Lance’s wallet, I could assume Victor had taken it as well, with a passport and credit cards Victor could be heading anywhere.
I pulled up the airlines flying out of both Philadelphia and Baltimore. I decided to tackle the Philly list first and got shot down immediately. They didn’t give out that information.
Dejected, I went back to my house, taking care to lock up Lance’s house. I really should have emptied his trash before I left but that seemed pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. At home I racked my brain trying to figure out ways of getting that information. Online was no help, only airline personnel could access the passenger lists and I didn’t know anyone that worked at the airline but I knew someone who might.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
John had assured me that Lotte wouldn’t bear me any ill will for the failed setup but I still kept my fingers crossed as I hit her number in my contact list.
She answered sounding happy and relaxed, “Lotte here.”
“Lotte, it’s Teresa,” I said cautiously.
“Teresa! About time you called, girl, I bet your roots are screaming for a touch-up.”
My free hand went to my head as if I could feel what my color looked like. “Maybe but that’s not the reason for my call.”
Lotte cut me off. “Don’t bring up John. It simply won’t work between us, T. No matter how cute he is or how great his butt looked in jeans…” she trailed off.
Hmmm…. this was an interesting development, one that needed my attention. Alas it would have to be later. “Actually, I have a problem, other than my roots,” I added to appease my stylist, “and I was hopeful you might know someone who could help me.”
“Well, maybe, what do you need?”
“I need someone to speak with someone who works at an airline.”
Lotte made a humming noise for a few seconds. I was still trying to figure out the tune when she stopped.
“Let me send a message and if she can help, you’ll get a call back.”
“Thanks so much!” I gushed.
“No worries, girl. And call me soon for those roots.”
“Absolutely! Thanks again.”
I waited impatiently to see if Lotte’s person would call me. After five minutes and still no call, I gave in to my urge to use the bathroom. Sure enough, my phone rang right when I started going. Torn between answering and praying the other person wouldn’t hea
r what I was doing or urging my body to hurry up before the ringing stopped, I went with option number two and answered in time.
“Hello?”
“Hi! Is this Teresa?” A light, charmingly accented female voice inquired.
“Yes.”
“I’m Steph, Lotte said you needed some help?”
“It would be amazing if you could help me Steph,” I said in a rush of excitement. I just had to spin things so I didn’t come out sounding like a stalker. “A friend left me in charge of his house while he was traveling, while I was there recently, I noticed someone had been through his things.”
“Oh, that’s awful!”
“Yes, I have no idea if anything was taken or not.”
“So, how can I help?” Steph asked.
“I noticed Lance, my friend, left his cell phone here too so I have no way to connect with him until he calls me to check on things.”
This was greeted by a lengthy silence that I rushed to fill. “So, I need to find out where Lance went and maybe have him paged at the airport.”
“His flight just left?”
“He said he was boarding not even thirty minutes ago, right before I went to his house.”
“And you don’t know his flight?”
“No, I don’t know his flight.” Or destination, I silently added.
“Ok, well Lotte said you were honest so I guess no real harm in looking into this for you. What a way to ruin the poor guy’s trip through huh? He just leaves and his house gets broken into. Must be a rough neighborhood.”
“It didn’t use to be.”
“So, what’s his name?”
“Lance Hamilton.”
“I do see a Hamilton but not a Lance.”
“He might be going under Penrose L. Hamilton,” I suggested. Victor would have used whatever was on Lance’s driver’s license
“That’s him. Looks like he has two stops, Boston and Dublin.”
“Dublin? As in Ireland?” my voice squeaked. I had no idea why Victor would be traveling to Ireland!
“Yes, Ireland but that’s just the second stop. He’ll be laid over there for four hours and then get a plane to Athens, Greece.”
Of course! Greece! Why didn’t I immediately think of that?! Victor was going home, home to take a Greek body. Dang!
“Teresa, you still there?” Steph’s voice rose.
“Yes, sorry. A lot going on, as you can imagine.” Major understatement there.
“I was saying your best bet of contacting him is during the stop in Boston. I’ll call and have them leave a message for him about the break-in and to call you ASAP. Sound good?”
“You’re a lifesaver, Steph! I cannot than you enough.”
“Absolutely! I hope they get whoever trashed his house. Best of luck to you both.”
She hung up and I flopped on the couch. What was I going to do?
With a sigh, I got up to pack. Guess I was going to Greece.
PSYCHIC
ABROAD
Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Freed
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental or by permission. Thanks Aunt T!
DEDICATION
Thanks to my wonderful Aunt Teresa, who allowed me to use her adventures with Victor and the Ouija board as inspiration for the series.
To my furry writing partner, Bonnie, who keeps my lap warm and my keyboard full of kitty hair.
My friend until the end, we hit the big 4-0 this year and can celebrate over thirty-four years of friendship, pretty wild. Oh, and WE DID IT! Woot!
In Memory of Mr. Craig Kennedy, and his brainstorming lessons with endless train clouds puffing and colliding. Though no longer here with us, he touched countless lives.
CHAPTER ONE
“Heat of the Moment, Asia,” the hefty guy in the seat next to me commented.
Turning to him while popping out an earbud, I looked into his slightly bloated but earnest pasty face. “Sorry, too loud? You could hear it?”
“No, you were singing,” he remarked a small smile on his face and a twinkle in his bloodshot brown eyes.
Oh my gosh! I’m sure my face flushed bright red as I felt the heat of embarrassment rush hot blood to my cheeks. Before I could stutter out a reply, he laughed a polite, indulgent little chuckle.
“It’s fine, I like that song. Surprised someone your age would listen to it.”
Sigh, always with the age remarks. Why did everyone over thirty feel the need to point it out? I knew my birth year better than they did. I also knew mere numbers didn’t make a difference when it came to life experiences. And wow did I have some experiences! Though this was my first time leaving the country.
But it wasn’t worth the hassle of being upset over something that countless others had done and would no doubt continue to do. Besides, why take it out on my poor seatmate that for all I knew was nervous about flying and just being chatty? So, I put on a happy grin and just ignored the age remark, somewhat. “Yeah, the classics. I love them. Back when lyrics made sense right?”
“Oh yeah,” he said then directed his attention to the female flight attendant standing politely with a beaming smile at my side whose presence I had been completely unaware of until that moment.
“Gin, please.” He ordered before touching my bare upper arm with a finger that he skimmed over my skin. “Soda for you?”
Actually, I really could use a Coke but I disliked his condescending attitude toward me, his creepy finger, and I was still smarting from that age crack so I made a huge rookie mistake.
“No, I’ll have a gin and tonic, please. Make it a double.” Ha! Take that Mister whose name I didn’t know.
My moment of triumph was ruined when the attendant asked to see my ID.
After showing my license and with our drinks on cute little white cocktail napkins, I learned my new buddy was named Jim and he was on his way to Greece to be best man in some old college chum’s wedding, his second. Wedding that was, Jim told me between loud gulps of his drink. He loved weddings, tons of divorced lonely ladies.
While he droned on about old college memories and the dating scene when you were over forty, I thought about Lance and Victor. Mostly how in the world was I going to locate Victor and get Lance safely back to Delaware before he lost his job.
The silence finally penetrated my theories and I realized Jim had stopped speaking and sat looking at me with an expectant smile.
“Oh, me? I’m going to Greece to help my ex-boyfriend. He was kidnapped by the spirit of a dead drug kingpin. Should be interesting,” I said brightly taking my first and last sip of my drink.
“Whoa!” I gasped fanning my open mouth and trying not to slosh the drink all over as I set it back down with shaking hands. “Quite the kick huh?” I wheezed.
“Yes, it is. Well, good luck with that,” Jim said, pulling out a black satin sleeping mask and setting it over his face before he turned and nestled a meaty shoulder into a plush first-class seat.
HA! Now I could go back to enjoying my music and maybe a nap of my own. No way did I want Jim chatting my ear off the entire ten-hour flight to Athens. It was bad enough that this was my first international flight and I wasn’t going on some awesome vacation. Nope, not Teresa Ashford, no nice relaxing trip to Greece for me. Instead, I was on a mission to do exactly what I had told Jim. I don’t know if Victor had actually been a major drug kingpin but he was definitely a spoiled rich brat and a dealer. Besides, I�
��m sure in his mind he referred to himself as a major player.
Shifting my butt in the seat to find a more comfortable spot, my eyes closed and I thought back to all that had happened in the last few days.
After Victor’s call and the nice airline employee, Steph, telling me where Victor/Lance was headed my first instinct had been to pack and head out after him. After digging out a deep violet suitcase from the back of my walk-in closet that still reeked of those little silica packets they use for freshness, I had begun haphazardly tossing in whatever clothes I snatched at first. It had taken Daisy hopping in and giving me a few annoyed twitches of her long white whiskers as I covered her in clothes to slow my frantic movements and for some rationality to finally take over.
I had responsibilities, my own three cats, Maverick, Daisy, and Agnes, not to mention Whisker Kisses, the cat rescue I founded and ran with the help of a wonderful team of volunteers. Things had finally calmed down after my last episode of being MIA due to being completely wrapped up in my relationship with Lance. How were they going to take me running off and being unavailable again? And with the trip concerning Lance. He wasn’t the most well thought of person around there since many of them were convinced he had broken my heart. And that was despite my extremely heated assurances that it was I who had ended things and in the most spectacular fashion by tossing a glass of water in his face during an argument about commitment and children at a restaurant in Lewes.
With several pairs of silky panties still grasped in my hand, I had picked my phone off the nightstand and pressed two. As it rang, I half hoped John wouldn’t answer and I could just leave a rambling message that would be less embarrassing than talking to him in person.
“T!” a loud, cheerful voice boomed in my ear.
“John,” I answered with a lot less exuberance. Then I spilled out mostly everything in a rush before he could say anything else. “I need to travel for a bit and I was hoping you could come and cat-sit for me.”