by Linda Palmer
“Answer my question, Brynn. How do you really feel about him?”
“Today? He’s bearable. Tomorrow, who knows?”
“Then it’s probably not love.” Whew.
“Probably not, though he can be a doll.”
“Which isn’t enough to base a romance on, right?”
“Right. Now what did he say?”
How could it be so easy to deliver messages from the dead, yet so heard to share ones from the living? “He thought you fussed too much when he fell down the stairs.”
She huffed her exasperation. “That’s because he had my iPod in his pocket.”
I burst out laughing. Couldn’t help it.
“What’s so funny?” asked Cooper, now sitting next to me. His tray held a loaded hamburger, potato chips, apple pie, and a canned soda.
“Nothing.” I exchanged a look with Brynn. If we ate like that, we’d both be shaped like Miss Piggy. Guys had it so good. When Tyler joined us moments later, I saw his lunch was just as big, though he’d gone the pizza route.
We all began eating, talking between mouthfuls about nothing in particular until Marty walked up. He had someone with him. A girlfriend? Petite, with blond hair and brown eyes, she said “Hello” to anyone listening and sat next to him. He introduced her as Anna Kelso. Cooper, who clearly knew her, introduced me and my crew. I suddenly wondered if they’d joined us by design, as in he’d invited them so the table would be full.
Anna looked at me with interest. “It was you who]found Marty’s baseball?”
“I just gave him a clue.”
“That you got from his dead grandmother.”
“Well, yeah.” I waited for her next words, unsure where she was headed.
“That is so cool. I’m just the biggest paranormal TV junkie in the world. ‘Ghost Adventures’, ‘Ghost Hunters’, ‘Dead Files’, ‘Paranormal Witness’…”
“Me, too,” said Brynn, adding, “Because of Mia, of course. Once you know it’s real, anything supernatural is addicting.”
Now that I knew Anna didn’t have any paranormal prejudices, it was easy to be myself. I fielded all her questions while I ate.
“Do people think you’re weird?”
“A freak, you mean?” I briefly zoned in to Cooper, who sighed heavily. “Sometimes.”
“It must take so much courage to do what you do. I’m in awe.”
“Why, thanks.” I couldn’t remember when I’d gotten a nicer compliment.
“My great-grandpa isn’t coming through is he? Or do I have to have known him for him to contact me?”
Even as I shook my head to tell her no to both questions, I sensed him coming forward in response to her unintentional invitation. “Is he really quiet?”
Her face lit up as she quickly nodded. “I’ve always heard he couldn’t get a word in because he wife talked too much.”
I waited for the presence I felt to tell me more. “I’m getting a B name. Bobby?”
“Yes!” Anna practically bounced in her chair.
“He’s showing me a photo of a baby in a green Tinkerbell blanket.”
“Oh my God. That’s me! That’s me!”
“Then you have met him, only it was before you were born.”
“Aww.” Her eyes shimmered with tears. “Thanks for that.” Sniff. Sniff.
To my left, Marty and Brynn, who sat across from each other, talked about younger siblings, probably because they each had two. I noticed that Tyler noticed how they’d hit it off. His gaze shifted to me. I winked, glad that each knew where they stood.
Did Cooper wish he knew where he stood, too? Probably. That made me feel bad that I hadn’t been able to promise I’d be his secret girlfriend. When the warning bell told us fourth period would begin in five minutes, we all split up. Cooper left me with a nod. I didn’t see him for the rest of the day.
Wednesday was a repeat of Tuesday, with Cooper being the invisible man until he turned up at lunchtime. Brynn and Marty seemed to take up where they’d left off, and I was pretty sure I heard him asking her out. Jealousy compromised my joy at her progress in the boyfriend area. Why couldn’t I have fallen for a guy with the freedom to simply be himself?
I abruptly realized he had been himself when I fell for him. Events had compromised his situation—tragic events. And if I really loved him, I’d be supportive, something his mom and stepdad certainly weren’t.
When we went our separate ways at the end of lunch, I sneaked in a hug, but only after I was sure there were no teachers in the cafeteria that would run to old man Marsh. Cooper’s pleased smile was my reward.
As Tyler, Brynn, and I walked to my car at three-thirty, I got a text message from Mom: Det Curt Simms, MPD, wants to talk to you after school at his office about a missing child. She never used abbreviations.
“Who?” I wondered aloud.
My dealings with the Martinsburg PD had all been confined to Detective Jeff Pence, a believer with limited powers of his own. And while I knew most of the other cops, I had no idea who this Simms guy was. I relayed the request to my friends, telling them I’d take them home first. But they both wanted to go with me, so we headed that way. “Anyone remember a policeman named Curt Simms?”
My question wasn’t that crazy. Though our little parishes were under a sheriff’s jurisdiction, they’d gone with me to the Martinsburg police station on more than one occasion and knew most of the cops there as well as I did.
“Not right off, but the name sure rings a bell.” Brynn thought for a minute. “Oh I know. His ex-wife Tina was one of Mom’s regulars. Lived in Blue Springs, I think, so he must’ve been on the force there.” She referred to a town as small as Ville Cachée. Brynn’s mother styled hair at the Special Day Salon in Martinsburg and was really good at it. So she had customers from all over and knew just about everyone.
Brynn thought for a second and then continued. “As far as I can remember, their divorce, which happened a couple of years ago, was really ugly. She’s Filipino with a huge family in the New Orleans area. Mom said when four of her brothers came up to help her and the kids move, Detective Simms flipped out. He really loved his kids and was totally pissed that she was taking them south even though the judge said she could.” Trust Brynn to have the scoop, but then beauty shops were notorious for gossip, as were small towns where everybody knew each other.
That information definitely helped put me at ease. Though I didn’t know the guy, I already felt sorry for him and knew I could definitely work with a cop who’d experienced that kind of pain. No wonder he was interested in finding lost children. In a way, he’d lost two of his own.
Just as we got to the front entrance of the police station, Tyler nudged me. I looked where he looked and saw Cooper, oblivious to us and headed into the Merrill Lynch building just down the street. I remembered that his mom had worked in finances in Birmingham. Was her office in there?
As always, Sergeant Mark, the cop at the front counter, waved me on back. I found Detective Simms’s office easily enough since he’d taken over the desk of Detective Pence, who was on special assignment according to the sergeant. Since the detective was on the phone, my friends and I quietly took a seat across the desk from him.
I’d never been very good a guessing ages, especially guys’ ages. But I decided that Detective Carl Simms could be anywhere from forty-five to fifty. He styled his brown hair military short, as in buzzed, and had a cleanly shaved jaw line. As on so many males, thick, long eyelashes rimmed his golden brown eyes, an injustice to all us females stuck with applying mascara every day. Detective Simms wore plain clothes, though he did have a badge mounted on a leather thingy stuck in his shirt pocket and plainly visible.
I scanned the room, noting changes made in Pence’s absence. There weren’t that many. Beyond one photo of a gorgeous dark-haired woman with two precious children everything seemed just the same, as in very cluttered. Folders littered the desk and credenza. I saw a dirty coffee cup, a half-open pizza box from Spinelli’s, and
piles of forms and papers. My only reaction? I needed to tell Mom and Dad that Spinelli’s, our competition, might be delivering, something we didn’t do.
A young woman stood at a bulletin board to our right, taking down grainy black and white crime scene photos that I didn’t care to examine. I thought of all the cop movies I’d seen. Clearly law enforcement’s surrounding themselves with photos related to the crime was not just a Hollywood action-movie practice.
Simms hung up the phone and gave us his attention. “Which of you young ladies is Mia?”
“That’s me,” I said, automatically raising my hand just enough to catch his eye.
He introduced himself. I introduced Brynn and Tyler. If he minded them being there, he didn’t say so. “Why don’t the two of you wait up front while Mia and I talk with some very worried folks.”
They got up and went one way. We went another. On the walk down a short hall, I noticed that the detective seemed to have a yellowish haze around him, something I’d never encountered before. It wasn’t a bad or scary thing, necessarily, just different. Instinct told me it might have something to do with his military past, and I wondered if I was seeing an aura or some kind. If so, that was a first.
“I’m not sure I believe in psychics, but I know that Pence did.” Detective Simms gave me a half shrug that could’ve meant anything and opened the door to a conference room. A young black woman and man sat at a long table inside it. She’d been crying. The guy seemed sort of helpless, as men sometimes will when the woman they love is upset.
“Have a seat.” Detective Simms pulled out a chair for me.
I sat.
He handed me some clothing and snapshots of a darling little girl with wide black eyes and a head full of ebony curls and multicolored barrettes. “This is Bailey LaGree, twenty-month-old niece of Miss Henze, here. We just put out an Amber Alert on her.”
So the woman wasn’t the mother. Interesting. I gave her a quick onceover and decided she was probably someone’s boss and worked in an office setting.
“Bailey’s mom died a year ago. Miss Henze has had custody since then.” He didn’t introduce the man or give me more details on the baby.
“Are you the dad?” I asked the guy to get the full picture.
Miss Henze answered for him. “Dewan is my fiancé. I’m Melissa, by the way.” She offered me her hand.
I shook it. “Mia Tagliaro. Nice to meet you.” I turned my attention to the things Detective Simms had given me—a frilly polka-dot dress, a pink blanket, a teddy bear, and a pair of white sandals. Closing my eyes, I waited for this child’s spirit to come to me, but she didn’t. I softly exhaled my relief. “She’s alive.”
“Oh thank God.” Melissa Henze began to cry again. “Do you know where she is?”
I tried to concentrate, hoping I’d pick up something, anything that might give me a clue. But my sidekick abilities had always been limited when it came to the living. They were Cooper’s specialty.
Cooper.
I hesitated. Did I dare go there? “I’m not getting anything, myself, but then my area is communicating with the deceased. I know someone who might be able to help, though, and he may be close by. Can you please wait here for a few minutes? I promise I’ll hurry.”
All three gave me baffled nods, and I shot out of that room, down the hall, and past my waiting friends. Leaving through the front doors, I ran up the sidewalk. I burst into the Merrill Lynch building moments later, startling the young receptionist sitting there.
“Natalie Marsh?” Pant. Pant.
“Your name?”
“Mia Tagliaro, but there’s no need to announce me. I’m just going to borrow Cooper for a little bit.” With a distracted smile and a wave, I left her sputtering at her desk and darted to the wall directory. Then I headed to 1-C, only a couple of doors away. When I got there, I took a deep breath for courage and knocked on the jamb since the door stood open.
Cooper, sitting in a heather blue accent chair near his mom’s desk, swiveled his head in my direction. His eyes popped. He jumped to his feet. “Mia!”
“Can you come with me? Someone really needs you.”
He glanced at his mom and then at me again. “I really can’t—”
“Please. It shouldn’t take long.” Not for a guy with his skills, anyway.
“Cooper, who’s your friend?” Natalie Marsh clearly didn’t recognize me, which probably meant her son hadn’t told her a single thing about us running into each other at the dance.
I struggled not to take that omission personally. I mean, I knew his situation, and he had warned me.
Natalie, dressed in a black business suit and white blouse, exuded confidence and smarts. Her hair, light brown and worn chin length, flattered her oval face. I noticed her makeup, perfectly applied from neatly arched eyebrows to perfectly lined lips. She matched her office in a way—everything in its place.
Cooper’s mom definitely came off as distant, probably because I was practically dancing on her tasteful Persian rung in my anxiety to get Cooper moving. “Please, please, please?”
He hesitated a few seconds longer. “I’ll be back in a minute, Mom.” Cooper snagged his hoodie off the chair he’d been sitting in and joined me at the door. “What’s up?”
“Follow me.” With him slightly behind me and pulling on the hoodie, I hurried back to the police station, talking the whole way. So by the time we got to that conference room, he knew what I wanted him to do.
The questions was: would he do it?
While I introduced Cooper to the cop, the aunt, and her boyfriend, he picked up the items belonging to Bailey. He also studied the photo. He gave me his attention just long enough for me to sense something wasn’t right, the extent of my abilities where the living were concerned. Then his gaze pounced on Dewan.
“What?” I asked with a tug on the hem of his hoodie, sincerely hoping he still had enough sidekicks to help.
Frowning, Cooper shook his head.
I touched his shoulder next. “You’re not getting anything?”
“I’m getting plenty.” He really focused on the boyfriend, hesitated, and then went for it. “Where is she?”
Dewan blinked. “Say what?”
Cooper didn’t back down. “What did you do with the baby?”
Melissa Henze gasped and whirled on her boyfriend, now squirming in his wooden chair. “Dewan Childress, do you know where Bailey Angela is? Do you?”
“Now Missy, it’s not what you think.”
She stood up and placed her hands on her curvy hips. “Then what is it?”
“I did a good thing. They’ve been trying to have a baby for years. They’ll take good care of her, and we can use the money to get married and have some babies of our own.”
Without warning, Melissa snatched up a huge black leather purse and pounced on Dewan, bashing his head again and again. Detective Simms leapt to his feet, but instead of breaking them up, he shooed Cooper and me out of the room and back to his office.
My eyes instantly riveted to the bulletin board, which now had new photos on it. I saw what looked like an enlarged driver’s license photo of an Asian woman with dark eyes and straight dark hair. There was another photo, too, of a female body lying on leaves. Though it was blurry, I got a quick of impression of pain and horror before I slammed on the brakes mentally and physically. Cooper rear ended me as a result. Were the women in those pictures one and the same? It was hard to tell.
With a huff of annoyance, Detective Simms slipped around us and quickly scooted a hall tree with a jacket on it to the right to block our view of the board. “You two don’t need to be seeing those.”
I started to speak. If anyone needed to be seeing those, it was me, the girl who could help, even if the thought scared her stupid. But Detective Simms clearly had other ideas.
“You’d both have nightmares for weeks.” He gave us a smile that seemed a little strained, and it didn’t take a girl with sidekicks to pick up on his downward mood swing.
“Are they the women I read about in the paper?” Cooper asked.
“Yes. But don’t worry, we’ve got things under control.” He focused on me. “I’m sorry I dragged you in here today, Mia, and sorrier that I had doubts.”
“That’s okay,” I told him.
“At least it turned out all right.” His smile seemed sincere now.
I glanced at Cooper, knowing he could probably help with the murdered women in some way, just as I could. “Are you sure about those photos? Maybe we could—”
“No.” Simms shook his head. “I’m not involving teenagers, even psychics like the two of you.”
Seeing that he meant business and knowing Cooper hadn’t exactly volunteered, I didn’t pursue it. “I’m always glad to help.”
He nodded. “Good to know. Guess I’d better find out what Childress did with the kid. That is, if Melissa hasn’t murdered him. She’s a public defender, but I don’t think she’ll be taking his case.” With a dry laugh, he left us.
Impulsively, I hugged Cooper. “Thanks for that.”
“No problem.” He dipped his head to kiss me.
I kissed him right back and then took his hand. “Is Bailey okay?”
“Yeah. She’s with that guy’s cousin right here in town.”
He thought he’d give a baby to a family member in the city and get away with it? Unbelievable. We walked to the front to find Tyler and Brynn apparently mesmerized by the sight of…
Oh no.
Natalie Marsh, giving Sergeant Mark the third degree. “I know my son came in here. Now where is he?”
“Mom!”
Natalie turned at the sound of Cooper’s voice. “There you are. What’s going on here? Who is she?”
Cooper’s face turned six shades of red. I felt so bad for him and opened my mouth to explain that it was all my fault even though I was pretty sure she’d already assumed that.
He never let me get a word out. “Mom, remember Bella Tagliaro from that “Inner Eye” weekend when I was eight? Would you believe she’s going to Martinsburg High, too?”
I vaguely registered the shock of my friends, who’d had no idea Cooper had gifts or that our boyfriend-girlfriend status was a big dark secret from his family. “Hi, Mrs. Marsh. Nice to see you again. How are you?”