I close my eyes.
Eugene sits in his car, staring at Janet Rake’s shed. “I just need proof of his affair. Marissa should be able to take him for all he’s worth in the divorce if she has evidence he was unfaithful.” Tony arrives and knocks on the shed door. As soon as Janet answers, Eugene snaps a picture.
I lower my hand to my side. “You were spying on them for Marissa so you could get her the proof she needed for the divorce. You thought she’d be able to get more money from Tony if she could prove he was cheating on her.”
He nods but cringes at the movement.
That’s what he meant in my previous vision when he told her he’d make sure it all worked out. I turn to Mitchell. “He didn’t kill either of the victims.”
Mitchell gives Eugene his card in case he thinks of anything that might help with the case, but I’m convinced we won’t hear from him. Marissa and Nathan most likely won’t either.
We get back in Mitchell’s patrol car, and he turns to me. “Now what?”
As much as I hate this, Mitchell was right. “I think the only way to stop the third fire is for me to force a vision to foresee it.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“I have no idea.”
Chapter Seventeen
Normally, eliminating suspects is a good thing because it gets us closer to the guilty party, but in this case, we have no other suspects. I can’t think of anyone else who had motive to kill Tony and Janet. No one seemed to gain anything from it. I’m stewing over it Sunday morning on the couch with Jez when Mitchell shows up.
“Hey,” he says, walking in with a pastry box from Marcia’s Nook. “I thought you could use a pick-me-up.” He places the box on the coffee table before kissing Jez on the top of the head.
“Did you just greet my dog and not me?” I ask.
“Are you jealous of your dog?” He smirks.
Am I? What is wrong with me? “What did you bring me?” I ask, trying to change the subject. I reach for the box, but Mitchell beats me to it and opens the lid. Inside is an assortment of napoleons, cream puffs, mini apple turnovers, and Danishes.
Mitchell grabs a napoleon and holds it up for me to bite.
“I’ll get a plate,” I say. I’m not big on being fed.
“Afraid I’m going to smash the pastry in your face or something?” he asks as I get up for forks, plates, and napkins.
“I don’t get the whole feeding each other thing couples do. It’s weird. I don’t like other people touching my food.”
“Are you not going to eat this napoleon because I touched it?” He couldn’t sound more offended.
“I didn’t say that.” I was thinking it, though. There are other napoleons in the box. I was fully planning to grab one of those for myself. “Why does this bother you anyway?”
“Why does it bother you if I touch your food? We’re dating, Piper.”
I walk over and grab the napoleon from him, taking a big bite to shut him up. “Happy?” I ask with my mouth full.
“No. Now, I’m wondering why you yell at me for talking with my mouth full, but it’s okay for you to do it.”
I flop down on the couch and roll my eyes. “You’re impossible to please.”
He laughs, leans forward, and kisses me. “I’m perfectly happy right now.”
I roll my eyes again. “You’ve been here for five minutes, and you’re already giving me eye strain.”
“Then stop pretending to be annoyed with me. All the eye rolling is going to give you premature wrinkles.”
“You’re right. I’ll stick to smacking you from now on.” I shake my head and take another bite of napoleon, using my fingers instead of the fork since they’re already covered in food from when I grabbed the napoleon from Mitchell.
“I brought you another present,” Mitchell says. “For after you’re finished eating.”
“What is it?” I ask, but this time I cover my mouth so Mitchell doesn’t see my chewed food while I talk.
“A little something to help you have a vision.”
I look around since I didn’t see him carrying anything else when he got here. “Where did you put it?”
“Right outside your door.”
“You didn’t bring it inside?”
“Nope, because I know you can’t be trusted.”
I finish my napoleon and glare at him.
“See. You just shoved the rest of your napoleon in your mouth so you could go get the present.”
“If you knew I’d do that, why did you tell me about the present to begin with?”
“Point taken. I’ll remember that for next time. Mental note: Piper has no self-control.”
“Really?” I wipe my hands on a napkin and lean back on the couch.
“Oh, this should be fun. Are you planning to see how long you can sit here and not go get whatever is right outside that door?” He points to the door, taunting me even more. “It’s right there. What could it be?”
“I’m surprised you’re not running to get it. This is your case, after all. What will Officer O’Reilly think of you if you don’t solve it before the third fire happens?”
“Considering she doesn’t think there will be a third fire because it doesn’t fit the whole affair scenario, I don’t think it will be an issue. Now, you, on the other hand, do know about the fire, so she’ll think you don’t actually have psychic abilities and that’s why you couldn’t prevent it.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” I say. “I thought it bothered you that she questions me.”
“It does.”
“Then why are you throwing that in my face right now?”
Mitchell gets up and retrieves a bag from right outside my door. “I’m sorry. I should have given it to you right away, and I shouldn’t have tried to goad you with that line about your abilities.”
I take the bag. “That was easy.”
“What?” Mitchell sits down, eyeing me suspiciously. “Piper Ashwell, did you play me?”
I bob one shoulder. “Worked like a charm.”
“I thought you were mad at me.”
“It’s an easy assumption to make. You’d be right most of the time,” I tease.
He laughs. “It’s sad that I’m proud of you for tricking me.”
“I won’t argue there.” I open the bag and peer inside. “A green baby blanket.”
“I don’t know if it’s anything like the one in your vision, but I thought it might help you foresee the third fire.”
This is a great idea. “The pale green is the same. The design is a bit different, but this might work. Good thinking, Mitchell.”
“Yeah, well I figured you probably didn’t want to go into a baby store to get one either.”
“You figured correctly. Though I’m surprised you did.”
Mitchell smiles. “I had Gilbert pick it up for me.”
I laugh. “Poor Officer Gilbert. Hasn’t he been around long enough for you to stop making him run your errands for you?”
“It’s not like we can pick on O’Reilly. She’s new, but she’s been on the force for years. Gilbert is fresh blood. We all worked our way up the ranks like this.”
“Really? You were an errand boy when you first started?” I ask.
Mitchell looks down at his lap. When he first joined the force in Maryland, his superior was none other than Stacey Sherwood, a woman four years Mitchell’s senior who liked to prey on handsome new recruits.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.” I squeeze his hand.
He meets my gaze. “All in the past. Now, tell me what you need me to do to help you have a vision so we can catch this guy.”
Premonitions aren’t my strong suit by any means. The scary part is that it was actually a psychotic criminal who taught me to tap into my ability to see the future. He was a gifted clairvoyant, which made catching him particularly difficult. I nearly lost my life on that case. If Mitchell hadn’t shot the guy, I would have died on my grandmother’s gra
vesite.
“Well, I know Tony and Janet had a baby together. I saw the baby wrapped in a similar green blanket.”
“What if that baby is the killer?” Mitchell asks.
“It was a girl,” I say. “The killer is male. I’m sure of it.”
“If the adoption was closed, it will be difficult to track her down, but we could get Wallace and your dad on it.”
I nod. “You do that while I try to spark a vision.”
“You don’t want my help?”
“It will be easier if you aren’t staring at me. And take Jez. I need to focus on Janet and Tony since I know nothing about their baby.”
Mitchell stands up, kisses the top of my head, and taps the side of his leg to get Jez to follow him into the kitchen. “Do you want me to turn on the sink?”
The sound of running water has helped me before, but it was mimicking something from a vision I needed to spark. “No, it won’t help me with this case. Thank you, though.” I appreciate how much he tries to understand what I do.
I pull my legs up onto the couch so I’m sitting crisscross applesauce as my mom used to call it. I place the blanket in my lap and clear my mind of all thoughts. Then I picture Janet and Tony.
A young woman holds a baby swaddled in a green blanket. She hums “Rock-A-Bye Baby.”
Then the smell of smoke fills the air. The child starts coughing.
The vision shifts. The baby’s face changes to a full-grown woman about twenty-nine years old. She walks into a jewelry store.
“I’d like to get my engagement ring appraised,” she tells the salesman, who is covered in silver from head to toe. His clothes and all the jewelry he’s wearing are all silver.
The store alarms sound, and the place fills with smoke.
“Piper!” Mitchell is shaking me by my shoulders. “Piper! Open your eyes. Look at me. It’s not real.” He stops shaking me and yanks the blanket out of my hands.
Jez barks, and the next thing I know, her wet tongue makes contact with my cheek and eye.
“Ew, Jez. Stop.”
She sits beside me.
“You wouldn’t come out of the vision,” Mitchell says. “If she didn’t lick you—”
“I saw the baby the way she looks now. She’s a grown woman, and she’s engaged.”
“Are you sure that’s who you saw?”
I nod. “It was her. I don’t know where she is, but in my vision she was in a jewelry store.”
“Maybe that’s the location of the third fire,” Mitchell says.
“There was a fire, but that doesn’t feel right. The other two murders happened in isolated locations. Why would the third happen in a store?”
“You’re right. It doesn’t fit. Serial killers stick to patterns. So why the store then?”
“I’m not sure, but the salesman was wearing a silver suit and silver jewelry.”
“Are you saying the salesman is the killer?”
“Maybe.”
“Was it the jewelry store in town?”
I shake my head. “Definitely not. I didn’t recognize this place.”
“But you saw the salesman’s face? You’d recognize him if you saw his picture, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then let’s start searching online jewelry stores in the area. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find an ad with the owner’s picture.”
If this guy is the owner. He might just work there. We search for hours, having to order in for lunch. Dad and Officer Wallace are researching the adoption for us. I’m hoping by the end of the day, we’ll have a lead, no matter which one of us finds it.
I’m still convinced the killer has a stronger connection to Janet than Tony because the rage I felt during the vision of Janet’s murder was much stronger. I open another tab on my laptop and start researching Janet Rake.
Her website is incredible. She lists all her artwork, including previous sales. It’s an impressive body of work. I imagine she did well with the business. It’s clear I’m not going to discover anything on the site, though, so I move on to her social media. She has both personal profiles and business pages. I focus on the personal profiles first because there’s no way this was the work of an angry client. This is someone from her personal life.
Like most people, she has thousands of online friends. I’m willing to bet most are people she went to high school and college with and whom she doesn’t even talk to anymore. Why people put any stock in the number of online friends they have has always baffled me. Maybe it’s because I don’t use social media, but I can’t see the point. Not that I’m a good judge of any social norms. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not. Nothing about me says normal. Hence, I got my first boyfriend in my late twenties. But I can tell Mitchell and Marcia anything and everything. And if I ever need something, either one would drop what they’re doing to come help me. So I think I’m doing alright now.
“Find anything?” Mitchell asks, placing a new cup of coffee in front of me.
“Nothing yet. You?”
“Nada.”
“You somehow learned Spanish in this process, though. Muy bien.”
Mitchell laughs. “You’re getting better at making jokes instead of being sarcastic. I think that’s muy bien.”
I’m getting desperate, so I throw a bunch of things into Google all at once, including Janet Rake, jeweler, baby, and silver.
What it turns up takes my breath away for a second.
“Mitchell,” I say once I’ve recovered enough to speak.
“What is it?” He looks at my laptop screen.
“Janet’s maiden name is Silver.”
“Why didn’t I think to check for that?” he asks.
“Because Officer Wallace and my dad are looking into the adoption. I’m sure they found it. But none of Janet’s social media sites list her maiden name. I didn’t find this until I searched all the clues we’ve found at once.”
I go back to my tab with Janet’s social media profiles and search the name Silver in her friends list. “Look.” I point to the name it pulled up. “Benjamin Silver.”
“Is that her father, brother, cousin? What?”
I click on the profile photo, which is too small in thumbnail to make out. The second it comes up, I gasp. “That’s the salesman from my vision.” I open a new tab and type in “Benjamin Silver jeweler.”
A jewelry shop in New Jersey comes up. I click on the link. “Bingo. Benjamin Silver has to be Janet’s brother. The resemblance is too strong for them to be cousins.”
“And you’re sure that’s the killer?” Mitchell asks.
It all fits. As usual, my vision was spot-on. I just couldn’t interpret it properly at the time. My senses are tingling. “I’m positive.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mitchell tracks down Benjamin Silver to an address in New Jersey that isn’t too far away. We decide to head there while Dad and Officer Wallace continue to track down the baby Janet Rake and Tony Trevino gave up for adoption.
It’s times like this that I wish Mitchell was an FBI agent instead of a police detective. Going to New Jersey means Mitchell is leaving his jurisdiction. He calls a friend of his on the way.
“Jerry, it’s Mitchell.”
I’m used to Mitchell calling most people by their last names, so this strikes me as odd. He must know Jerry pretty well, but then why haven’t I heard of him before?
“Piper and I are on our way to you. We’re chasing a suspect in connection to two homicides committed in Weltunkin.”
Hmm, Mitchell referred to me as Piper, which tells me this Jerry person knows of me.
“Ah, and you want me to get my department to cooperate with you on this,” Jerry says through the Bluetooth. “Of course. Anything for you, man. And I finally get to meet Piper. I’m excited.”
Mitchell actually blushes. “Thanks. I’ll text you the address. Can you meet us there in about twenty minutes?”
“You got it.”
Mitchell ends the call. “Can
you text him the address for me?” he asks.
I pick up his phone from the middle console. “Sure, as soon as you tell me who he is and why he knows who I am but I haven’t even heard his name before.” I send the text while I’m talking because I’m not actually petty enough to delay a murder investigation because my feelings are hurt.
“Jerry and I grew up together. We joined the police force together, too. He’s a police chief now, but he still does a lot of field work since he’s too young to sit behind a desk. It’s a small town, so it’s like doing double duty.”
I stare at him, tuning in to my senses, which are picking up on the fact that while Mitchell really cares about Jerry, like a brother basically, he feels inadequate compared to him. “You’re jealous he’s already made chief and you haven’t,” I say.
“I’m not jealous of Jerry. He works hard and deserves everything he’s achieved. I’m happy for him.” Mitchell gives me some serious side eye. “And stop reading me. That’s not okay, Piper.”
“Sorry, but your emotions are pretty loud right now.”
“Loud? You can hear them?”
“No, not like that. I don’t know how else to describe it. They’re tough to ignore.” I put his phone back in the middle console. “If I’m being honest, though, I did open up my senses to your energy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s not fair that you can get exclusive looks inside my head, but I can’t do the same to you,” he says.
I scoff. “You might think you can’t, but when was the last time you didn’t know what I was thinking? Or feeling for that matter? It’s kind of infuriating how I can’t get anything past you.”
“Does that mean you’re trying to?”
I laugh. “Maybe sometimes.” I really don’t want him to ever find out I’ve come to be mildly amused by his fascination with distorting idioms to fit our cases. It’s kind of clever. Totally cheesy and immature, but also clever.
I turn in my seat to face Mitchell. “I know you’re driving, so keep your eyes on the road, but try to focus on me as well. What am I thinking right now?”
“Are you trying to figure out if I have some psychic abilities inside me somewhere?” he asks.
Fight Fire with Foresight (Piper Ashwell Psychic P.I. Book 12) Page 15