Her Perfect Life

by Hinze, Vicki

  Simms lifted his brows, but said nothing.

  His hostility had her angry and nervous inside. She needed a minute to get herself glued back together. She pushed away from the wall and peeked out between the dusty Venetian blinds. “Can you believe this rain? It should be snow.”

  “You know New Orleans doesn’t get much snow,” Sandy said, “not even this close to Christmas. And you don’t seem fine. Maybe you ought to give Dr. Z. a call.”

  “Later.” Hearing the steady rap of his pen against his blotter, she turned back toward Sandy. “When there’s time.”

  His faded eyes lit with compassion. As if knowing she wouldn’t welcome it, he shifted his gaze. “Look, I know that last case was hard on you,” he said, avoiding speaking Sarah’s name. “Finding her like—like that. Well, I know it was rough.”

  Caron stiffened and tried hard not to recoil. Parker, too, had tensed. Just the indirect mention of Sarah had Caron remembering what had happened—and reliving it.

  Images flooded Caron’s mind. Images of Sarah’s battered body, unnaturally twisted, lifeless and cold. Images of flames sweeping up the walls, engulfing the building where Sarah had suffered and died. And images of the empathy pains, so staggeringly severe that she nearly had died with Sarah.

  Her stomach folded over on itself, and Caron shuttered her thoughts. Still, her hands shook, and her knees were weaker than her aunt Grace’s tea.

  Afraid she’d fall if she didn’t sit, Caron plopped down in an old chair wedged between Sandy’s desk and the wall.

  Parker looked at her from around the corner of the file cabinet. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Caron assured him. “I’m fine.”

  He lifted a brow and spoke to Sandy. “She looks a little green around the gills.”

  If she’d had the strength, she would’ve slapped him. The man didn’t have a compassionate bone in his body.

  Sandy held his silence and rocked back, rubbing his chin. The split leather cushion swooshed under his weight and creaked when he rolled closer to his desk to reach for his glasses. He draped them over the bridge of his nose and propped his elbows on his desk pad. “What do we have this time?”

  This time.

  Would there be more times? Or was this one a fluke? Swallowing hard, Caron dropped her shoulder bag onto the floor. Again she wished that Parker Simms were anywhere in the world except Sandy’s office. After this, the man would add “flaky” to his list of her sins.

  Resentment churning her stomach, she looked at Sandy and began disclosing the facts. “A nine-year-old girl. Brown hair. Green eyes. Frail.”

  “Caron?” Sandy stiffened, his voice tinged with reluctance.

  He was afraid for her. Afraid she couldn’t handle the pressure or the empathy pains. So was she. But she had to take whatever came—for the little girl. Caron schooled her voice, but it still sounded still faint. “Her hands are...bound.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Caron looked up and met Sandy’s gaze. It was all there for her to see. Fear for her. Raw terror for another victim—a younger Sarah.

  “Do you have any proof?” An angry white line circled Parker’s lips.

  “Let her tell the story, Simms.” Sandy’s tone carried a warning, one Simms would be wise to heed.

  The men locked gazes.

  Parker didn’t back down.

  Sandy blinked rapidly three times, then turned his chair toward the computer on the stand beside his desk and positioned his fingers on the keys.

  She heard him swallow. “Bound with what?”

  His tone told her that Sandy, the man, had buried his emotions. Sandy, the cop, had stepped in. Caron took comfort in that. “Rope.” She squeezed her fingers around the cold metal arms of the chair. “A greasy rope.” Her wrists twinged. She looked down, half expecting to see black grease marks. But, of course, there were none.

  Sandy began to type. “Paint me a picture.”

  It was as hard as the telling itself, but Caron forced herself to look Parker Simms right in the eye. It was obvious that he didn’t believe her. But that was his problem, not hers. “She’s huddled in the corner of an old wooden shed— the wood’s slick, weathered. Sunlight’s slanting in, between the slats. Inside it’s maybe eight by ten—no larger.”

  “What’s inside?” Sandy’s voice was hoarse.

  Caron couldn’t concentrate. Parker’s gaze had gone black. It was disturbing, seemingly reaching into her soul.

  She closed her eyes and blocked him out. The images grew sharp. A spider crawled up the far wall, then onto a shovel caked with dry mud that hung there from a shiny nail. “Lawn tools,” she said. “Rusty cans of paint and insecticide are on a shelf above the little girl. There’s a big bag of—” the writing was faded, and Caron strained to make out the letters “—Blood Meal.” That was it. “It’s on the floor, propped against the far wall. That’s where she’s huddling.”

  The steady clicking of the keys stopped. Sandy gulped down a swig of coffee. “What’s she wearing?”

  From his grimace, the coffee was cold. “Blue jeans,” Caron said. “The color of Mr. Simms’s. They’re ripped over her left knee.” She paused and felt her own knee through her white linen slacks. No pain. No burning from a scrape. The frayed fabric was worn, not ripped. The girl’s knee was fine. “And a yellow T-shirt.”

  “Anything written on the shirt?”

  “There’s an emblem, but I can’t see it. Her hands are curled to her chest.” Cold? No, she wasn’t cold. Caron scanned the image, then closed her eyes to heighten her perception. “Black sneakers—muddy. And yellow socks.”

  He keyed the last of what Caron told him into the computer. “What about height, weight, distinguishing marks?”

  “She’s sitting down and curled, but about four feet, and maybe sixty-five pounds. She’s fragile-looking, small-boned.” Caron pushed herself to sense the girl’s emotions, her physical condition, opening her mind to the images. Her stomach churned. Pain flooded it. Fevered and flushed, she felt dizzy. The smell of mud and chemicals grew stronger and stronger, until she couldn’t breathe. She snapped her eyes open and gasped.

  Sandy jumped up and touched her shoulder. “Hey, take it easy, Caron.”

  “I’m okay.” She took in great gulps of cleansing air. The expression on Sandy’s face warned her that the second she left his office he’d be calling Dr. Z. to express his concern that Caron was still suffering from trauma-induced psychic burnout. “She’s sick, Sandy. Very sick.”

  “Was she beaten, bruised—anything else?” Parker asked.

  How could Simms sound so calm and unaffected? Again Caron sensed his disbelief, his hostility toward her. “No.” Her head was clearing. “Just sick.”

  She dabbed sweat from her forehead. “I don’t know about the man.”

  “What man? Now there’s a man?” Parker grunted. “What next? Flying saucers?”

  “Damn it, Simms, knock it off.” Sandy looked back at Caron and gentled his voice. “Tell me about the man.”

  She closed her eyes and again saw his face, his piercing eyes. They were green, and as ice-cold as Parker Simms’s.

  She blinked and focused on Sandy. Her voice rattled. “I imaged him on the way over here. He might not even be connected. I’m not sure yet.”

  Then it hit her. The little girl had dimples. So did the man. “No, they’re connected. He’s her...father.” That didn’t feel quite right. Not at all sure she was interpreting properly, she hedged. “Maybe. There is a connection.”

  Sandy moved back and watched the computer screen. “We’re coming up empty. Ready to look at some pictures?”

  Caron nodded and picked up her purse. From under her lashes, she stole a glance at Parker. He’d pulled his chair away from the wall. And, sitting sprawled with his elbow propped on the armrest and his chin cupped in his hand, he looked bored and irritated. He hadn’t bought a word she’d said.

  Caron sighed inwardly. She’d met his kind before—one too man
y times. “No photos of runaways,” she told Sandy. “The girl’s not a runaway. She was abducted.” She could feel herself breaking out in a cold sweat.

  Abducted. Just like Sarah James.

  Tapping his pen, Sandy abruptly stopped. “Any idea of where from?”

  Caron knew exactly. “A store on the west bank. The corner of Belle Chase Highway and Twenty-first Street. There’s a shopping center there, a reddish brick building. She was behind it on her bicycle. It’s lavender.”

  “They’re coming fast, aren’t they?”

  She nodded, resigned. The images were coming very fast. And Simms’s expression had turned to stone.

  Sandy added the latest info to the rest in the computer. “Do you have a name?”

  She paused, waited, but nothing came. It hadn’t with Sarah, either, not until later. “No.”

  “We’re still dry here.” He nodded toward the monitor.

  “Nothing?” Caron frowned. “The child was abducted. How could there be nothing in the data bank? Her parents—somebody—had to notice her missing.”

  “There’s nothing here.” He raked his hair with a burn-scarred hand—another legacy of the James case.

  “Maybe she wasn’t abducted.” Parker let his hand drop to the armrest. “Maybe none of this is real. Maybe you’re—”

  “I wish the images weren’t real. You have no idea how often I’ve wished it.” Caron leveled him her best hostile look. How could any man so gorgeous be such a narrow-minded thorn in the side? “But they are.”

  Compassion flitted over his face. He clamped his jaw and squelched it. “At the risk of sounding sarcastic, let me ask my trivial question again. Do you have any proof?”

  She flushed heatedly again. For a second she’d thought he might come around, but he hadn’t. He was no different from the others. She lifted her chin. “Nothing you can touch, see, smell or feel, Mr. Simms. Only the images.”

  Parker looked at Sandy. “And there’s no missing-person report?”

  Grim-faced, Sandy shook his head. An uneasy shiver rattled along Caron’s spine. Before now, there always had been a report. That there wasn’t one now had her feeling grim, too. Grim and uncertain.

  Parker stood up. “As far as I’m concerned, that covers it.”

  Caron tried hard to keep her temper in check. Not only was the man insulting and rude—he might as well have called her a liar straight out—his negative feelings were unjustified. That infuriated her. “Look, Mr. Simms—”

  “No, you look, Miss Chalmers,” he cut in, his voice cold and steady. “It’s a simple matter of logic. If your child were missing, would you file a report?”

  “Yes, I would, but—”

  “Well, there you have it. Right from the psychic’s mouth.” He leaned against a file cabinet and cast her an acid look that she would have thoroughly enjoyed knocking off his face. “No report, no abduction. And no case.” With an annoying little shrug, he straightened. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have real work to do.” Refusing them so much as a nod, he walked out of Sandy’s office.

  Caron glared at his retreating back. “You’re wrong, Parker Simms. Dead wrong!”

  He didn’t stop, or turn around.

  “Parker has a point, Caron.” Sandy said on a sigh. “Are you sure about this?”

  After all their years together, Sandy doubted her. That hurt. “Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped. “Do you think I want to see this child dragged through hell? Do you think I’m looking forward to being dragged through hell with her?”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that...” His face tinged pink. “You and I both know you had a really close call with—with the James case.” A desperate edge crept into his voice. “You nearly died, Caron.”

  He looked down at his desk pad, his eyes unfocused. “It’s been a year today.”

  A year ago today, they’d found Sarah James. Dead. A surge of bitter tears threatened. “I know.” How could she not know? She’d never forget. Sarah’s killer being in prison didn’t help at all.

  “Could you be getting your wires crossed because of it?”

  His question was valid. Caron had nearly died. During the week-long investigation, she’d followed up on the leads she’d imaged, and her health had deteriorated quickly. The more deeply engrossed in the case she’d become, the more acutely she’d suffered every atrocity that Sarah James had suffered at the hands of her captor. And Sarah James had been tortured.

  Following the grain in her padded chair with her fingers, Caron looked at Sandy, knowing her regret was shining in her eyes. “This isn’t confusion. I wish it was. I wish the child wasn’t in danger. But she is, Sandy. I swear, she is.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose above his half-moon glasses. A smudge on the lens caught in the light.

  When it became clear he wasn’t going to respond, Caron turned the subject. “Why did you bring in Parker Simms?”

  Sandy looked away. “I told you. I think he can help.”

  “Help?” She guffawed. “He’s the most hostile man I’ve ever met.”

  Indecision creased Sandy’s brow, and he stuffed his hand in his pocket. “He’s got his reasons. I agree that these days Parker’s in a black mood most of the time, and he’s really rough around the edges. But he’s the best at what he does.”

  Sandy knew more than he was saying, and her expression must have told him that she knew it. He gave her an uneasy smile. “Come on, you can handle Simms. Just don’t take it personally. When the man dies, he’ll probably ask God for his ID.”

  “And God’ll give it to him,” she said with a hint of a grin. There was no sense in alienating Sandy. She’d get Parker Simms’s measure...eventually.

  “He probably will.” Sandy gave her shoulder a firm pat. “Let’s look at those pictures, hmm? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Nodding, Caron went into the outer office and got busy.

  Parker sat in the Porsche outside Sanders’s office and stared up at the rain-speckled window. She was still in there, filling Sanders’s head with bull.

  His hand shook on the wheel. God, if he’d blown this…No, he hadn’t blown it. He’d been rough on her—not that she didn’t deserve worse—but she had no idea who he was, that he’d been tailing her, or that he’d gathered a year’s worth of proof that his ex-partner, Harlan, had been right. Caron Chalmers was no more psychic than he was.

  For prosecution purposes, it was circumstantial evidence, true. But it was strong enough to convince Parker. A year of teaching second-graders sixty miles away in Midtown, and the lady couldn’t hack playing it straight. So she’d come back and picked up where she’d left off with Sanders.

  Parker had figured that it would take an out-and-out threat to get any information on her from Sanders. All he’d managed for the past year was Sanders’s admission that he and Chalmers were friends. But things had taken an odd turn.

  This morning, Sanders had called and seemed almost relieved to spill his guts and tell Parker she was coming down to headquarters. And then Sanders had done something even odder. He’d asked him to help Chalmers.

  That request had knocked Parker for a loop. Sanders was genuinely worried about her; there was no doubt about that. Parker had seen Sanders’s look in his own mother’s eyes too often not to recognize it. And that worry made Sanders Chalmers’s victim, too. Not the same kind of victim Harlan had been, but still her victim.

  Parker’s stomach lurched, and the lump in his chest turned stone-cold. He grimaced, doubly resolved. Harlan was right. Caron Chalmers was a fraud. And, by God, Parker meant to stop her—before she caused anyone else’s death.

  After an hour of staring at photos and coming up as empty as the computer’s data bank, Caron stood up at the long table and stretched, then looked back over her shoulder. Through the half-open glass door, she saw that Sandy was alone, but talking quietly into the telephone.

  From the intimate tone of his voice, she knew the call was personal. Caron lifted a brow. It was h
ard to imagine Sandy loving, or as a lover. What kind of woman would be attracted to him?

  Sandy hung up. Caron tossed her foam coffee cup into the overflowing trash can and tapped on his door. When he looked up, she leaned her head against the doorframe. “You guys should use paper cups or real mugs.”

  He glanced up from an open file. “What?”

  His eyes looked a little glazed. Must have been one hot call. Parker Simms and his broad shoulders flashed through her mind. She blinked the disturbing image away. “Foam doesn’t break down. You know, go green and save the planet.”

  “Oh. Right.” Sandy set the file down and, elbow bent, propped his chin with his hand. “I’ll mention it.”

  He wouldn’t. Typical Sandy. “There’s nothing in the photos. I’m going to ride over to Gretna and see what happens.”

  “Be careful.”

  Caron nodded. “I’ll give you a call.”

  “You want company? I guess Simms skated out on us, but I could tag along.”

  Sandy was worried about her, but that wasn’t all of it. She couldn’t blame him. After Sarah’s case, how could he not be worried? Caron herself was worried—and tempted to take him up on his offer.

  Before she could give in to the fear, she replied. “No, but thanks. I have to get my feet back.”

  She hiked up her shoulder bag to hide her own misgivings. How well would she cope this time? Okay, so she was scared stiff. She had honest concerns about her abilities, and about the empathy pains that always accompanied the images. How much could she physically withstand? She hadn’t been tested since the images had come back, either. How accurate were her perceptions?

  As much as she hated to admit it, hostile or not, Parker Simms had made a valid point. For the first time ever in a case, she didn’t have a missing-persons report, or any other hard evidence. But she did have the images. After what had happened to Sarah, trusting them was as hard as trusting outsiders. Yet the stakes were too high for her not to; more than for herself, she was terrified of what was happening to the little girl. Of what could happen to her—if she found her too late.