She pushed to her feet. Just then a helicopter flew over. They watched it level out, heading east.
Clint sighed and shook his head. “If they’re only searching the terrain along the river, they’ll never find that boy, no matter how much fancy equipment they have. He and that dog could be ten miles from the water by now.”
“You believe me.”
The incredulity in her voice brought Clint’s head around. He nudged his hat back and gave her a disgruntled look. “I’m getting there.”
Hugging herself against the chill, she frowned at him. “I don’t get it. What changed your mind?”
Clint pulled on his boots while trying to formulate an answer. “Didn’t say I’d changed my mind. I said I’m getting there.” He shifted onto his knees to roll up the sleeping bag. As he worked he glanced up at her. “Mainly it’s you, I guess. You seem like an honest person, and I can’t ignore the fact that you’re here, willing to do whatever has to be done to find the boy, even if it means riding a horse, sleeping in a tent, and putting your life in the hands of a man you barely know. That makes it really hard for me to believe you’re lying—unless, of course, you’re crazy, and I don’t think that’s the case, either.”
She laughed softly. He really did enjoy that sound. “I’m not so sure. Agreeing to come with you isn’t the sanest decision I’ve ever made.”
“Or the easiest decision you’ve ever made, either, I’m thinking. But you’re here, willing to put your bacon on the plate. I can only conclude that you sincerely believe every word you’ve told me—that Trevor Stiles is out there somewhere, and only we can save him.” When the ties on the sleeping bag were secured, he tossed the bedding to her, pushed erect, and swung his saddle up onto his shoulder. “I can continue to doubt you at every turn, which will do nothing but slow us down, or I can try to set my reservations aside and just go for it.”
“And you’ve decided to do the latter?”
“Let’s just say I mean to give it my best shot.”
A few minutes later, when Clint walked down to the water to wash up, he saw searchers in bright orange vests preparing to drag the river at first light. The authorities were obviously convinced that the child and dog had drowned. Clint imagined that similar operations were taking place both up-and downstream.
When he returned to camp he informed Loni of what he’d seen. His voice edgy with frustration, he finished with, “It doesn’t appear to me that they’re expanding the search, or intend to anytime soon.”
Crouched by the small fire, she glanced up from pouring some coffee. Holding a blue enamel mug out to him, she said, “Both adults drowned. Naturally they’re convinced that the child must have, too.”
Clint accepted the cup and took a careful sip of the scalding-hot brew. “We should talk to the search coordinator. They’re wasting their time down there. They should be combing the forests a lot farther north of here.”
She stared gloomily into the licking flames.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She closed her eyes, then her lashes fluttered up. “If we go to the person in charge and tell him what we know, we’ll have to give some sort of explanation, won’t we? Otherwise he won’t listen to us.”
Clint studied her thoughtfully. “That’s true. Do you have a problem with that?”
When she looked up at him, her eyes had gone dark with shadows. “Telling him I’m a psychic, you mean?” Her soft lips thinned over her teeth. “He isn’t going to believe me. You know it, and I know it. So why even bother?”
Clint crouched down across the fire from her. “Whether the search coordinator buys your story or not, at least you’ll have planted the thought in his mind that Trevor may still be alive and farther north than they think. When they find nothing in the river, they may decide to widen their focus. Not to say we can’t find him in time by ourselves. Don’t get me wrong. But it’d sure as hell be nice if we had some help.”
As though to shield her thoughts, she looked off into the trees. Clint was starting to get a very bad feeling.
“We at least need to talk to him.”
Face pale, features drawn, she nodded but didn’t speak.
“Something’s eating at you,” he ventured. “From this point forward we’re partners. Right? If you have a problem talking to the authorities, you’d better tell me now. I don’t like surprises.”
She shifted her gaze back to him. Her eyes were the most incredible shade of blue he’d ever seen, rivaling the dusky, rose-streaked morning sky behind her. “I have no criminal record, if that’s your worry.”
“What then?”
She set her cup on one of the rocks that Clint had placed around the pit last night. “About a year ago I got sucked into a big mess.”
“What kind of mess?”
“A young woman named Cheryl Blain had been missing for about six months. Her parents and the authorities believed she was dead.” Her throat worked as she struggled to swallow. “I’d just received the Decorator of the Year award, and the Blains read about me in the paper. They visited my shop and asked me to redo their home. It was where they’d raised their daughter, and everywhere they looked they were reminded of her.”
Clint wondered where this was heading—and how it had anything to do with the search for Trevor. “Go on.”
She drew up her shoulders, the burgundy fleece jacket bunching in folds at either side of her slender neck. “Normally I don’t work with the general public. I prefer to do only new construction, model homes mostly.” She narrowed her eyes against a waft of smoke. “Older homes can be a problem for me.” Her mouth thinned again and quivered at the corners. “Sometimes I’m okay, but other times I pick up bad vibes.”
“How do you pick up bad vibes?”
“By touching things. My sister calls it psychometric divination, the ability of some individuals to divine information by touching a person or an object.”
“Ah.” Now Clint knew what a psychometrist was. “And that happens to you in old houses?”
“In some, not all.” She drew in a shaky breath and exhaled in a huff. “The Blains liked my bold decorating style and would settle for no one but me to redo their home. I felt sorry for them, I guess. They were grieving and heartbroken, and I couldn’t tell them no.”
Clint glanced at the sky. The sun would be completely up soon, and he still wasn’t sure where this story was going. “So you redecorated their place?”
“We never got that far.” A distant, wistful look entered her eyes. “I went to their home to give them a bid. When I entered Cheryl’s bedroom, which was just as she’d left it, I had a vision, a violent, terrifying vision.” Her gaze sharpened on Clint’s. Pale before, her face had now gone chalky white. “Cheryl wasn’t dead,” she said tautly. “She’d been abducted and was being held captive somewhere.”
“For six months?”
She nodded. “I heard her pleading for help.”
“Heard her?” Clint struggled to wrap his mind around that. All of this was so foreign to him, and this story sounded like something straight out of a Hannibal Lecter film. Six months was a hell of a long time for a woman to be held captive. “What did you hear her saying?”
“It was more what I heard her thinking,” she corrected. “She was gagged and couldn’t speak. In her mind she was pleading for help. She knew he was going to kill her if someone didn’t find her soon.”
Clint turned his cup between his hands, feeling chilled despite the warmth of the fire. “So you can read minds.”
“Sort of.” She flapped a hand. “Only not in the way you mean. It was more like her thoughts became mine, like she was whispering inside my head. Does that make any sense?”
None of this made sense. But Clint had reached a point where it made even less sense to think she was lying. “Sort of. So when you heard her thoughts, what did you do?”
“I staggered from the bedroom and collapsed in the hall. My entire body throbbed with pain—her pain.”
“Her pain?” he repeated stupidly.
“I’m empathic. I mentioned that last night.”
She’d told him a lot of stuff last night. He’d grasped only about half of it.
“During a vision I often experience the person’s physical sensations. When Trevor fell into the river I felt the shock. Not as acutely as if I’d fallen into the water myself, of course, but I felt it, nonetheless.
“Anyway, I knew Cheryl was in grave danger, and if someone didn’t help her quickly, she was going to die.” The tendons along each side of her throat corded with tension. “I’d long since sworn off telling anyone about my gift. Most people react the same way you did. But I had to tell Cheryl’s parents. How could I not?”
“How did they respond?”
“They didn’t believe me at first. Their daughter had gone missing six months before. Traces of her blood had been found in her car. She’d been a wonderful daughter, very responsible and thoughtful. The Blains were convinced Cheryl would have found some way to call home if she were still alive.”
“Only she couldn’t call.”
“She was bound hand and foot.” She passed a trembling hand over her eyes. “She was so real in my mind—as real as her parents, who were standing right in front of me. It took some fast talking, but I finally convinced them I was telling the truth.”
“So they called the police?”
“Not immediately. We needed more information.” She touched her cup as if to pick it up, but then left it on the rock. “Mrs. Blain brought me one of Cheryl’s most cherished possessions, a baby doll she’d had since early childhood. I held the doll, closed my eyes, and for the first time in my life successfully summoned a vision. I needed to get a clear picture of where Cheryl was.”
Clint no longer cared how this pertained to the present situation. He was too caught up in the story. “Did you see anything?”
“Yes, a small metal building near an irrigation canal with heavy equipment parked in a nearby lot. I also heard single-engine planes flying overhead. There were pipes and what looked like oversize wrenches inside the shed. I also saw Cheryl’s captor. He was thirtyish, with blond hair, and blue eyes that looked”—she broke off and stared blankly into the flames—“insane. It’s the only way I can think to describe his eyes. There was an expression of indescribable evil on his face when he leaned over her.”
“You actually saw him?”
With a start Clint realized that he’d gone from dubious to completely sold between one heartbeat and the next. How could he not believe this woman? The pain and lingering horror that he saw on her face would have convinced anyone. Now he understood why she had so many dead bolts on her doors and a dog the size of a horse. After living through something like that, any halfway intelligent person would beef up home security.
She finally lifted the cup but didn’t drink. Instead she gazed into the murky contents as if searching for answers to questions he couldn’t even fathom. “Yes, I saw him.” She tossed away the liquid. “Saw him, heard him, and felt what he did to her. My picture of him was so clear I later worked with a sketch artist, enabling the authorities to apprehend him.”
The coffee Clint had just swallowed tried to push back up his throat. “Sweet Jesus.”
“Anyway, Mr. Blain felt we had enough then to call the police. Sadly for Cheryl, the officers who answered the call didn’t believe my story. They took notes and were polite, but it was obvious to me as well as to the Blains that they were struggling not to laugh. John Blain was furious. His daughter was in danger of being killed, and the police thought it was a joke.
“He made some more phone calls. I was horrified when I realized he was speaking to members of the media. I pleaded with him not to give out my name, but in that moment all he cared about was Cheryl and causing such a stink that the police would have to do something. He wanted the story plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the greater Seattle area, and he wanted television stations to broadcast it as well. He wasn’t going to let his daughter die without one hell of a fight.”
“No, of course not.” Clint tried to imagine what it must have been like for Loni, but he simply couldn’t. “So the story went public, and your name was in the newspapers and on all the newscasts. That must have made your life difficult for a while.”
“Worse than difficult—it was pure hell. To make a long story short, the police came under fire for not following up on the leads, and they finally started visiting all the small airports in the area, looking for the canal and shed I described. Sadly, all the media hype spooked Cheryl’s captor. Three days after the story went public, her body was found in an irrigation canal near a small airport. She’d been missing for over six months, but she’d been dead for only twelve hours.”
Nausea burned in the pit of Clint’s stomach.
“The instant her body was found, the media noted how similar the location was to the one I’d described, and overnight I became the hottest news story the area had seen since the manhunt for the Green River Killer.”
Clint was finally beginning to understand her reluctance to seek out the search coordinator. “Is that why you ended up in Crystal Falls—to escape all the publicity?”
“The media are like vultures picking at a carcass. They wouldn’t leave me alone. I had frantic parents calling and coming to my shop, begging me to help find their missing children. I would have if I could, but that isn’t how it works. The visions come or they don’t, no matter what I touch. They’d shove things into my hands, and I tried, I really tried, but nothing would happen. But they refused to believe that. They offered me money. They grew angry. One father even got physical, convinced I wouldn’t help because he had only ten thousand dollars.”
“Oh, Loni.”
“It’s never been about financial gain. If I could, I’d sell everything I own and spend every dollar I have to be rid of this. Most of the time it doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like a curse. And it was especially bad after Cheryl’s death. I’d think the worst was over, and then another child or teenager would go missing, kindling interest in me all over again.”
And now she was about to step forward and let the vultures have another go at her. Clint tossed out the cold dregs of his coffee. The liquid hissed when it hit the rocks. “And now you’re afraid the same thing could happen all over again.”
A silence fell over them, the only sounds a whisper of breeze and birds twittering to greet the day. “Gram says I can’t run from this. I’d rather not speak to the coordinator, but if I can convince him I’m telling the truth, it may save Trevor’s life. Like you said, we may be able to find him on our own, but having some help sure wouldn’t hurt.”
“Maybe we can get around telling him your name.”
She shook her head and pushed to her feet. “Trevor is all alone out there. I’ve seen him, heard wolves. I know how frightened he is. He’ll be found much faster if I can make that search coordinator believe me, and the only way I know to do that is to tell him about Cheryl. By making a few phone calls, he can verify the story. Maybe this time because of Cheryl, it will be different. Maybe this time my gift will actually save someone.” She lifted her hands. “I’ve got to try. No matter how it turns out, I’ve got to try. Trevor needs me to do this for him.”
Clint couldn’t argue with her reasoning. He only wished he could think of some way to protect her.
Chapter Five
Ten minutes later Loni and Clint were down at the water. About a dozen people worked exhaustively to drag for Trevor’s remains. Even well below the rapids in what appeared to be calmer water, the swiftness of the current made the job difficult. People on both banks manned anchor ropes, trying to keep an aluminum riverboat, equipped with an outboard motor, from drifting downstream. Iron grapnels and gaffs were being tossed overboard, then hauled back up again. Loni felt particularly sorry for the two divers. Even with wet suits to protect them from the icy water, they had to be chilled to the bone.
T
he search coordinator, a Crystal Falls policeman named Richard Conklin, had joined the local search-and-rescue team years ago and was now a knowledgeable veteran. He seemed to be a decent man. Despite his obvious disbelief when he heard Loni’s story, he maintained a courteous, professional manner.
Directing a look at Loni, he asked, “What did you say your name was again? I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Her name is Loni MacEwen.” Clint thrust out his hand. “I’m Clint Harrigan, a local rancher.”
“Harrigan?” Conklin frowned slightly. “You related to Samantha Harrigan, the gal whose quarter horses were poisoned last year?”
“My sister.”
“So you’re Hugh Harrigan’s nephew?”
“I am. You know him?”
“Back when I was a state boy, we used to patrol the same stretch of highway occasionally.” Conklin grinned. “I know him rather well, in fact. We’ve shared many a thermos of coffee. You raise horses, too?”
“It’s what you might call a family enterprise,” Clint replied. “That’s why I’m here, actually, because I have a stable of horses. When Ms. MacEwen told me her story, I offered to take her in on horseback to look for the boy.”
Loni met Conklin’s gaze straight-on when he turned to look at her again. “I’ve never had the honor of meeting a real psychic.”
As the policeman spoke he smiled politely, a little too politely, in Loni’s estimation. She’d seen that expression on the faces of two other law enforcement officers in the not-so-distant past. “I know it’s a lot to take in and that you may have your doubts, but the validity of my story can be verified.” She gave him a brief account of the Cheryl Blain case. “Call anyone in law enforcement in the greater Seattle area, and they should vouch for me.”
Conklin nodded. “I may radio in and have someone do that.”
“Trevor needs help now.”
Conklin rubbed his jaw. “This is a huge rescue attempt, with a lot of law enforcement officers involved. I’m only in charge of this search team. Convincing my superiors to stop dragging the river to hare off into the mountains on a psychic’s say-so isn’t likely to happen. We’ve found no evidence that Trevor Stiles or the dog ever made it out of the water.”
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