Gypsy Hunted: a psychic paranormal book with a touch of romance (The Gypsy Medium Series 1)

by Andrea Drew

  At least, I could still feel. Surely, someone knew what was going on? I reached across with my right hand, managing to get my fingers curled around some type of remote. Then I threw it at the wall, where it sailed through the air, landing with an almighty crunch on the door before falling to the floor with a clatter. That should get someone’s attention. I struggled to wrap the fingers of my right hand around the edge of the mattress, my limbs jerking as I struggled to move. How could it be that no one heard me? As the sound of a nurse’s shoes increased from barely there to audible, and then just to outside the room, I realized I’d attracted the desired attention. It was time for some answers. The door opened and there they were.

  “You’re awake. Good, that means we won’t have to wake you up later to take your blood pressure,” said a brown-haired, olive-skinned nurse. She padded around to my right to pat my leg. Another woman with red hair, freckled skin, and the same light blue uniform followed. In her case, the uniform was stretched as far as it could across her folds and rolls.

  “Gypsy, your friends were here while you were in surgery,” said the redhead. “Emergency services traced your call and the ambulance brought you in. The police will want to interview you soon. A report has been filed, but you don’t need to worry about that now. Let’s get you better first.”

  My shoulders rounded, and I pulled the sheet up to cover myself. I shook my head and pointed at my mouth. I couldn’t speak and didn’t want to talk to police yet. I needed a day or so to recover at least.

  I was frustrated. Not remembering fully how I’d ended up here, I glanced at the redhead, while curling my fingers to smooth my hair back.

  I wanted to know who the nurses were, what they knew, and when they were going to let me out of the hospital.

  I wondered if they were going to tell me their name.

  As if on cue, the nurse on the right piped up.

  “I’m Tina, and this is Colleen. We’ll talk to the police for now if you like, delay them for a bit, but I’m sure they’ll be back tomorrow, because they’re keen to interview you. We’ll be looking after you today.”

  I nodded my head slightly, thankful. I wondered how this whole interchange would go. The nurses were talking at me as if I wasn’t there at all.

  Hello, can we focus on the patient here for just a sec?

  I’d worked out which one was good-cop and which was bad-cop. I hoped that Colleen wasn’t planning on giving me a sponge bath, if they even did sponge baths anymore. Frowning, I pushed my feet down to the footboard at the bottom of the bed with a pleasing bang. That should get the message across, no sponge bath for me. I clutched at the sheets, feeling the clinical, starchy texture.

  Tina touched my forearm, sending a jolt through me, which hit my forehead with a zap. Pinging pictures pushed their way in at the speed of light. I saw an overweight, balding man, sitting on an armchair and turning away. A feeling of unbearable sadness accompanied glorious pictures of a newborn baby, with Tina looking on in awe. Split second collages, so many pictures, coming at me so fast that I almost couldn’t keep up. A white car smashed up accordion like, a huge gathering in black, coffin lowering into the ground, Tina collapsing inconsolable at the graveside.

  “Can you move your fingers for me, honey?”

  A rubber band snapped me back into the present and the connection was broken.

  I wriggled my fingers, and as I bent my right arm up at the elbow, a smirk moved across my face. If I were able, I would have screamed my excitement down the corridors. However, all I managed was a lopsided grin from the right side of my mouth; complete with drool, which I hoped wasn’t oozing all the way down my chin. I wiped my damp lips with the back of my hand. When Tina handed me a tissue, I managed to grunt out something resembling a thank you.

  “Your friends said you ventured into a dark alley on Saturday night. Why would you do that?”

  “Colleen…” Tina began with a warning tone.

  Tina was still touching my arm, so if she was a receiver, she’d get my thoughts and the messages I was sending her. I was hoping she was the exception, and had the antennae like Renee. Some people—not many living ones, anyway—got my thoughts, and it didn’t take long at all. In fact, with Renee, it was almost instant. Not everyone could do it, though. It depended on where their awareness frequency was set, and which station they were tuned into.

  “Right. Better get on with checking your vital signs then. I can see a slight droop on your left side, Gypsy, so it is possible that the brain injury has affected your movement there and possibly your speech. You were lucky. You have multiple injuries. The doctor will be in soon to discuss your treatment options.”

  Sweat gathered under my eyes, and my right hand was clenched into a fist. I tried to signal how I felt by pursing my bottom lip and blowing my hair out of my face. What did they mean anyway, brain injury? What brain injury? Is that what happened to me? I wished Tina could share my thoughts. I had so much to tell her if I could just shake off the slowness.

  I felt like I was underwater. My head reeled so badly that I wondered if it was moving.

  Tina was sliding the blood pressure cuff off. She patted me gently.

  “The doctor will be in to see you soon.”

  I pointed at Tina, trying to get her attention. I needed more information, but she had already padded away along with Colleen. Now I fully understood how a swimmer felt struggling underneath the water. My limbs moved at a snail’s pace and the pea soup fog in my head was thick. Maybe, just maybe, this was all a dream. One of those nightmares where I couldn’t move fast enough to escape the monster would be good about now. I could wake up in my bed at home, shake the whole mess off, and get on with the business of living.

  My eyelids were like lead and I struggled to keep them open. I needed to stay awake as long as possible. There was work to be done. I needed to get well so that I could not only report what I saw, but investigate further. Must. Stay. Awake. Must…

  The room faded as I succumbed to the wash of lead haze and I drifted off.

  *****

  As Connor switched off the alarm, he knew it was going to be a rough one. The rumor mill was already in overdrive, and his phone had notified him with a ping.

  A young woman, a police headquarters employee had gone missing last night.

  The kicker was the confidential reports she’d swiped on the way out of the building. Reports about suspected crooked cops, written by internal affairs and for the eyes of that department only. Seems this lady was curious and not all she appeared to be.

  He’d been exhausted last night and needed a full night’s sleep. It was still dark outside as he slid out of bed and slipped on his running gear. His morning run helped him keep his thoughts straight and make a reasonable start to the day. He grabbed his water bottle from the shelf beside the door, and headed outside. If he didn’t run, he’d go insane, or at least more insane than he felt already, dealing with the unrelenting pressure of being senior detective. As he headed down the steps, he heard the satisfying clunk of the door closing.

  Cold air stung his skin, and his breath formed plumes of mist that streamed past his eyes. Lengthening his stride, Connor pulled the iPod from his pocket to clip it onto his waistband. Some cops turned to drink, some to drugs, and others went off the rails. After the failure of his marriage, he had turned to running, three miles a day.

  The rhythm of his feet hitting the pavement reassured him, guiding him on. As Connor’s thoughts turned to the woman he’d met at dinner the night before, excitement prickled along his shoulders and the backs of his arms. Damn, she was hot, not what he’d expected. He thought she’d be some annoying breathless woman giggling with nerves. She was not only gorgeous, but had a keen intelligence, and her feistiness was appealing. Matt had mentioned that “a friend of a friend who’s single” would be there, but Connor had been so focused on current cases, some of which were getting intense, and the conflicting demands of the bureaucratic bunglers at head office that when he’d m
et Gypsy, it was almost a physical sensation, a jolt he’d definitely not been expecting.

  She wasn’t like the fleeting presence the others had been. Something about the way she looked at Connor made him sure she understood and wanted to get to know him. There were so many things he wanted to share with her, but he couldn’t. No way in hell. Some things, including the years of IVF, the needles, the expense, and the resentments that built up eventually to crack his marriage were too raw, too private to share with anyone.

  He thought about their conversation, the fact that Gypsy had never met a detective.

  The day he’d made detective was etched in his memory. Back then, they didn’t have a clothing allowance, so polyester shirts with mismatched pants had to make do. The day he got his Ford Falcon, the car of his dreams, Connor had stood with chest out, a proud gleam in his eye. Sure, it wasn’t the most modern vehicle ever, but it was unmarked and it was his. He polished it and cleaned it to within an inch of its life. He carted the bare essentials along in the boot: a fishing tackle box filled with a fingerprinting kit, crime scene tape, extra ammo, paper towels, a spare expandable baton, and a Smith and Weston model ten revolver, which replaced the new issue pistol some time ago. His M&P 40 semi-automatic pistol rarely left his nylon belt, along with the Hiatts handcuffs and the spare Motorola tactical radio with hand piece.

  He wasn’t prepared for the loneliness and alienation of his new lot in life. The sheer workload and often twenty-hour days only added to the pressure of fighting with his wife about IVF treatments. Jill screamed that he was never there when she needed him, and he brought his head down slightly. He knew it was true. In a bid to connect, gain reassurance that at least some of his colleagues would understand, Connor had turned to his former workmates, but the camaraderie he’d enjoyed with his fellow boys in blue was a thing of the past.

  He wanted to tell Gypsy how it had been back in the Drug Squad when he was still feeling his way around in his detective’s skin. Connor held his head high, remembering the jealousy of his brothers. He had also changed over the years, and the superiority complex he swore he’d never have had slowly shifted his view of the world. He remembered how it felt to spend hours sitting in the woods watching suspects, with mosquitos sucking the blood from him relentlessly, along with occasional visits from spiders and snakes. Not to mention the unrelenting rain and snow.

  Nobody had told him how it would feel to work undercover, especially when walking into the middle of a drug deal unarmed. His training hadn’t prepared him for how it felt when his cover was broken. The shock of being shot at, spat on, beat up, kicked, scratched, stabbed, cut, knocked down, punched, and pepper sprayed with his own spray, all while wearing a suit. How it felt to kill a man, even one that was practically begging him to do it, a once in a lifetime experience. The way the nineteen-year-old armed robber had hidden behind a car, popping his head out repeatedly, a sitting duck. He’d held back knowing this was the case and that the guy was obviously under the influence of drugs, and wanted to be shot. Why else would he come out from the car and wait like that with a smile and a nod? How the young man’s face would stay with him forever, and so would the look on the parents’ faces as Connor broke the news to them.

  He wanted to tell Gypsy all of these things, but couldn’t find the strength to do it. Besides, technically, he hardly knew her. He poked his tongue inside his cheek, realizing without a shadow of a doubt that he damn well couldn’t tell her that he and Jill had split up because of the strain of being infertile. The treatments over the years, and all the baggage of IVF, and for all that, the problem was with Jill. He had already fathered a child.

  When he had just turned eighteen, he spent most of his time at the home of his older brother, Dan, and his young wife, Rae. He idolized Dan and found himself drawn to him, every word and deed a revelation. He’d mimicked him in every way he could, even becoming a police officer just like him.

  One afternoon, when Aaron was at daycare, Rae had confided in him about the trouble in her marriage: Dan’s long hours, her intense loneliness. Crying, she apologized for burdening him at such a young age. Connor didn’t care. He was just glad that someone actually trusted him enough to spill their guts, and he’d held her tightly as the sobs wracked her body. It had seemed only natural that they had ended up in bed together. He’d never forgotten it, what eighteen-year old would? It was his first sexual experience, not that he ever would have told his mates in the final year of school. Anyway, it was private, something for him to hold onto and savor. He wasn’t the type that bragged to his mates, so he’d kept it to himself, reliving the encounter night after night, smiling a smile as he carried his secret, which only made the experience more monumental.

  When he heard that Rae was pregnant, and Christie arrived nine months later, Connor had been terrified. At once, he stopped visiting so often. Dan had asked what was going on, but Connor simply shrugged, playing the angst-ridden teenager card. Over the years, he noticed the similarities that he and his niece shared, but kept quiet, desperately hoping no one else saw it.

  He also wouldn’t be confiding in Gypsy about the one-night stands, the women that had approached him once they’d discovered he was available. It was as if someone had turned on a magnet or a switch, announcing a married man suddenly separated. He wondered if they felt sorry for him. The pretty blonde journalist and the red headed constable he’d slept with since his split with Jill had comforted him, their warm bodies filling the loneliness temporarily. He hadn’t wanted any more than that, and they knew it, or he hoped they did. He’d told them and they nodded and smiled but he wondered. Wondered if they were simply responding as he’d expected them to, remaining hopeful. Thankfully, the journalist wasn’t loose-lipped. Connor wouldn’t have been able to stand the pity or the congratulatory slaps on the back down at the station.

  He set his jaw and pushed his shoulders back. He would never be able to tell Gypsy, although, maybe someday he would want to. Some things were better left unsaid. Although she seemed approachable, saying them out loud would make them more real and solid, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that. It was still early days. He looked forward to getting to know her. He smiled to himself, hoping she would get in touch. Women could be coy about that sort of thing, but in her case, he had a feeling he just might get a phone call.

  *****

  A base drum pounded inside my skull, forming cracks in my vision. I opened my eyes to slits and looked around. The hospital room was now dimmed to a grey hue, thanks to some sympathetic soul who had closed the blinds. I felt more alert, not as badly off my face with God knows what medical drugs. As my gaze moved from the window to the chair, I saw Leah perched precariously on the edge of the seat. Her skin was pale and translucent, her short brown hair tousled. I sucked in a quick breath and shook my head, feeling the blood rush to my face. For the first time in a long while, I wondered if she really did care.

  Her dark hair was just as wild as it had always been, and her mouth was still set in a grimace, accepting all that was barely tolerable. If Leah and I had spent our lives in a squabble of a half-lived life, her daughter Renee was my primary hope that some people may turn out to be half-decent. Her first words as a toddler had been “Nay,” pointing to herself with a chubby sausage finger, and “Arny Gyp.” Over the years, the names had stuck, and she didn’t seem to mind being called Nay or horse-face. Meanwhile, I accepted that I was Arny Gyp, depending on how she felt. At the age of thirteen, she’d become a seriously studious, yet, an angelically beautiful child.

  I grabbed the side of the mattress in an attempt to leverage my body up, which failed miserably. My hand bobbed as I searched for the bed remote. My fingers, finally making contact, curled around its plastic edges and soon the bed sighed with an electric hum, as it, and my back, began their upward journey. I felt a lot more civilized in the upright position, more able to cause an effect and almost ready to face the day, although the drugs wearing off probably had more to do with that. The base dr
um in my head shifted from the right to the left, and I flinched as it pounded with greater intensity. Shame I didn’t want any painkillers, but I needed to be alert and awake.

  “Gyp,” said Renee, her neck bent as she came out from behind her mother’s chair to walk toward me, hands brushing across various objects of the room, the window ledge, the end of the bed, feeling her way. She dragged her feet over to my bedside and reached gently to feather her fingers across the scar on my head. Rocking slightly, her hands continued in a gentle exploratory gesture over my shaved scalp. Her right hand slid away, moving to her throat where she clutched at her locket. Warm moisture tickled the corner of my eye. Her simple gesture was so innocent, no need to pretend. I didn’t bother raising my right arm to stop her.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay.” Her eyes were furrowed, an expression out of place on such a beautiful young face.

  I sighed, wishing I could talk to her, and hear my voice again; a luxury lost to me which I hoped was temporary. I raised my one good hand off the bed, only for it to fall back exhausted by the effort.

  “You collapsed and I heard the nurses say your brain bled. I’m so glad you’re still around, Gyp.”

  I was pretty damn glad I was alive, too, even if at that moment, I couldn’t speak. I knew that Nay of all people would understand. I opened my mouth in my second attempt, resulting in not only the expected spittle launch, but also a groan, which sounded very close to Nay, although it also resembled the bray of a calving bovine. Regardless, I decided to take it as progress. Snatching at the tissues on the table, I managed to form my fist around a few before knocking the box to the floor.