Distracting.
“I need quiet. Your energy is frantic.” Kat explained. He huffed out a breath.
“This is time sensitive, can you do whatever it is you did with the hockey equipment or not?”
“Yes—no. Maybe. Just give me five minutes of peace. Go into the kitchen, down the hall to your right, brew up a pot of coffee and let me think.”
“Where’s the…”
“Zack. Please, go figure it out. Quietly.” She handed back the stuffed dog; there was nothing more it could tell her.
With a shrug of acceptance, he turned, his booted feet sounding unnaturally loud on the hardwood floor, and practically stomped his way down the hallway toward the kitchen. Kat shook her head at his retreating back and moved toward the dining room where she normally met with clients. Thoughts of him poking through her cupboards crowded out her ability to concentrate on the little boy who might be in trouble. What she needed was a distraction from his presence in her home so she could concentrate.
To give her hands something to do, Kat reached into the well-polished antique cabinet, pulled out a small bag of rune stones, and dumped them onto the table. Just touching them helped ground the energy flowing through her and let her begin to focus on something other than the voice in the back of her head. The one that kept repeating there’s a man in your kitchen, he’s touching your stuff.
Kat’s eyes unfocused as she ran her nimble fingers through the runes. After a short time, she began to sort through the stones, picking up first one then another, turning them over with her fingers and clearing the channels that spirit generally used to send their messages.
“Zack, does the boy have any family on the other side? Grandparents, aunts, uncles?”
“Grandmother, on his father’s side. Her name was June Hamilton,” he called back. She heard him opening cabinets and drawers.
“Oh, I knew her. Noel is Will’s boy? Will was a year ahead of me in school; he married a girl named Sandy. No, Sonjia. Something like that.”
“You going to climb every branch on their family tree or are you going to help me find that boy?” Zack walked back into the room and Kat could see the tension coming off him in waves.
“Do I tell you how to do your job? No. Now back off and let me do mine.”
Once he’d gone back to the kitchen, Kat heard the furnace kick on, the blower sounding unnaturally loud then when it shut off, the silence sounded even louder until she heard the bubbling gurgle of the coffee maker.
“I’m not getting anything.” She smelled the coffee, now. Rich and dark and seductive. It made her feel warm and protected; it smelled like home, like comfort, like safety.
Zack called out from the kitchen. “I can’t find the filters.”
“Wait, you haven’t made coffee, yet?”
“I can’t find the filters.” He repeated, exaggerating each word as though he thought her stupid. “Waste of time anyway. Anything could be happening to that boy by now.”
“No. Nothing bad has happened, he’s safe.” She would address his tactlessness later, “Noel—he can smell coffee.” Kat rose to pace the room. “He’s someplace warm, comfortable.” Now that she had the sense of him, it was easy to pick out the threads, tell which sensations had been his and which had been her own. The loud furnace noise meant a basement maybe? Some kind of closet?
“Call your guys, tell them he is in a small space near a furnace and he can smell coffee brewing. Wherever he is, he feels safe because he has been there before. It feels familiar to him.
When Zack just stood there, she walked over and gave him a shove. “What are you waiting for? Call them.” Instead, he started to pull her toward the door.
“Grab a jacket. Don’t you want to see for yourself? It’s a five minute drive with the lights on.” Thinking of a mother frantic to find her child, Kat quickly pulled a coat from the closet and followed him outside putting her feeling of excitement down to helping a lost boy and not the sizzle of his hand touching her arm.
Sun sparkling off the patches of remaining snow blasted light at eyes still unused to such brightness and Kat put a hand to her forehead for shade. Zack concentrated on his driving but still managed to keep her in his peripheral vision.
“There’s a pair in the glove box.”
“What?” His words confused her.
“Sunglasses,” he reached across, pressed the button to open the cubby and handed her his own aviators. They would be huge on her small face but at least her eyes would be protected.
Grateful for the way they cut the glare, she never gave a thought to how she looked. Too many years of not seeing herself in mirrors made it all too easy to forget about appearances. She would have been shocked to know Zack thought she looked adorable in his sunglasses.
It seemed they had barely pulled out of her driveway before they were turning into a small housing development. Kat remembered passing through here with her grandfather when she was younger. To see an area that had once been a large field now populated with a series of houses built from a similar pattern messed with her sense of place. It felt like she had traveled through time.
The third house on the left, the one with flashing lights and cruisers parked in front was the one Zack made a beeline for leaving Kat to follow more slowly. Before she reached the front steps, a whisper sounded in her ear.
“Over here.” It was faint, little more than a hiss. Kat lagged even farther behind and looked around to see where the noise was coming from. Down the narrow path between the two houses, the ground was already bare of snow but still felt frozen under her feet. Kat followed the voice until she heard, “look, there.”
Unless you were looking for it, you might not notice the basement window was ajar, or that there was a small smudge of mud on the sill.
Relief washed over Kat, some of it hers, some coming from the presence that had guided her to this place. The once she now realized had been feeding her information all along.
Leaning down, she nudged the window gently to see if a small boy could fit through the opening. When it swung wide on hinges mounted to the top, she knew this was the place. Little Noel could have easily pushed the window open and slid inside. Lifting Zack’s sunglasses off her nose, Kat peered in but could not see the boy anywhere. She straightened and hurried back to where Zack was standing on the porch with two women.
Both women were visibly distraught, one more than the other, her shoulders rounded, arms folded at her waist, there was a fragility about her as she tried to hold herself together—Noel’s mother, that tore at Kat’s heart strings. As Kat mounted the steps, Sonjia reached up to run a shaky hand through her already mussed hair, it was obviously not the first time she had performed the action that day. Tears dripped from her shadow-smudged eyes to make tracks down her pale face.
“We’ll find him,” Zack was saying. “We are following every possible lead.” He didn’t want to admit how he had gotten one of those leads or that he was banking on Kat’s being right.
He turned when he heard her feet crossing the porch and she beckoned him to follow her. There was no reason to get Sonjia’s hopes up, though Kat was positive Noel was curled up and sleeping in that basement. She led Zack to the window and showed him what she had found.
He wasted no time making his way back to where Sonjia stood. “Did you find something?” Hope made her voice rise.
“Who lives next door?” Zack asked.
It was the other woman who spoke, “I’m Melinda, that’s my house but I’d have heard Noel if he came in. I was making coffee when I heard Sonjia screaming outside. The front door is right next to my kitchen.”
Kat felt a surge of emotion. Coffee.
“Not if he went in through the basement window,” she pointed out.
“Those windows should all be latched….” Melinda’s eyes narrowed, “unless my husband has been sneaking smokes down there, he promised to quit.” Melinda was already headed down the steps, Sonjia hard on her heels.
“I’l
l kill him if that little boy has hurt himself.”
“I’ll hug him if we find Noel safe and sound. Then I’ll help you kill him.”
Kat followed Zack who followed Sonjia into Melinda’s house. Four pairs of feet clattered down the wooden basement stairs as Sonjia called out, “Noel, are you down here?”
No answer.
Maybe Kat had been mistaken, but she didn’t think so. At that moment, the furnace kicked on and, looking toward the noise, she saw a small space under a set of shelves. From out of the shadowy space poked a small, snow-booted foot.
“Look, there,” she pointed. Zack beat Sonjia there by half a hair’s breadth and pulling a small flashlight from his belt, hunkered down to direct the beam into the space. Noel, tired from his adventure, was curled up on a pile of rags sound asleep. Clutched tightly in his arms, a bedraggled cat blinked in the sudden light then began to purr.
A huge grin on his face, Zack stood then turned to Sonjia, “He’s fine. Look for yourself,” and handed her the light. Seeing Noel safe, his mother sank to her knees, sobs of relief shaking her shoulders as her son slept on.
“I’m so sorry, my house was the one place we didn’t bother to check because I was so sure there was no way he could have gotten past me,” Melinda’s voice wobbled. She was on the edge of sobbing half from relief and half from blaming herself.
“I’m betting he followed that cat through the window. He’s been watching it for the past few days and worrying over whether ‘poor kitty’ was cold or hungry.”
The two women comforted each other as soft snores and purrs emanated from under the shelf. If that cat didn’t go home with Noel, Kat would eat her shoe.
Still grinning, Zack called off the Amber Alert and personally assured Will Hamilton his son was safe before leaving the two women to deal with child and cat. There was a spring in his step as he escorted Kat back up the stairs. This part of the job made it all worthwhile—the times when it went right; when no one got hurt.
Protect and serve. Words to live by.
***
Now that it was all over, Kat felt lightheaded, breathless. It was the adrenaline rush. It could not be Zack’s hand on the small of her back as he guided her toward the car. A quick look at the clock on his dash said the whole thing had taken about an hour but it felt like only a few minutes had passed.
“How often do you get to help people like this?” No wonder he had chosen this line of work.
“Most days are less dramatic; routine traffic stops, breaking up bar fights, the occasional domestic call. During tourist season there’s a lot of D&D—drunk and disorderly—shoplifting is a problem during the summer months. Last year I had to talk a naked man down off the flagpole at the marina.”
“I’ll assume he had a good reason for being up there.”
“Climbing the flagpole he did on a dare. The naked part…well…” Zack shrugged.
“Better not to know, I think. Why here? What made you leave the city?”
Some of the easiness of the past few minutes dropped away and while he didn’t exactly avoid the question, Kat had the impression that his answer was a half-truth at best.
“Lateral move and the chance to reconnect with my sister.”
Maybe he would tell her the rest someday but for now, she accepted his answer and changed the subject.
“I’ve got to get one of these.” Kat glanced around the interior of the cruiser.
“A cop car? You planning to join the force?”
With rolling eyes, “No, silly. A car. I’m tired of having to be carted around everywhere I want to go. Guess I should learn how to drive first, though.”
“You don’t know how?” Of course she didn’t. What a dumb question. “I could teach you if you like. I’m off tomorrow.”
“You’re not one of those teachers who freaks out at every little thing are you?”
“No idea. Pick you up around 10am?” He pulled up in front of her place.
“It’s a date,” Kat did a mental face palm, “I didn’t mean….”
His look turned intense, “Thank you for everything you did today.”
She waved his thanks away. “See you tomorrow,” and got out of the car before another stupid comment could fall out of her mouth.
After he pulled away, he thought about her for a long time.
***
“While my friends were learning to drive, I was learning how to navigate through a world of darkness. Braille, counting steps, tagging my clothes to keep from looking like a freak, learning how to cook, how to organize my kitchen, money origami.”
“Money origami? That’s a bar trick, right?”
“Maybe for the sighted, but for me, I had to learn different ways of folding my money so I could tell the bills apart. You’d be surprised how many cashiers take advantage of the blind.” He had seen worse things happen to people but her quiet admission still sparked a seething mass of unexpected emotion in him. He wanted nothing more than to go back in time and protect her. Her next comment surprised him even more.
“I was lucky, though. My parents were determined that I learn to be as independent as possible. They couldn’t afford to send me to a special school so my mom put her research skills to work and learned how to teach me all of those things herself. She was relentless, she even learned Braille. There were times I hated her for pushing me so hard.”
“It must have been difficult for her, too.”
Kat nodded. “She worried, even after practically pushing me out of the house when my grandmother passed and left me this place but she always encouraged me to test the limits of what I could accomplish.” Tears welled up in her eyes but did not spill over.
“How did she feel about…?” As soon as the words left his lips, he wished had not brought the subject up.
“About me being a medium? You can say the word, Zack. I’m not ashamed of what I do. Not anymore.” It was nothing less than the truth. “It may not have been my dream job but I’ve been able to help people find peace with some terrible losses. What I do is rewarding on many levels. Helping you find that boy yesterday was unforgettable.”
Changing the subject, Zack said, “I think it’s time you made up for some of those lost experiences. Let’s go teach you how to drive.”
“You know, I’m nervous all of a sudden.”
“Come on, you’ll be fine.”
“But I don’t even have a learner’s permit. I’d be breaking the law.”
Zack laughed at that. “I think you’ll be safe from prosecution. Grab a jacket, it’s cold outside.”
Now that second thoughts had descended, Kat started casting around for anything that might get her out of the situation. But, coming up with nothing, she resigned herself to Zack’s teaching her to drive. She fully expected him to be impatient and abrupt. Dread settled over her as she pulled on a jacket and followed him out the door.
Zack drove them to the municipal parking lot, empty at this time of day on a Sunday. As he did, he kept up a running description of what he was doing while he drove and what he wanted her to do when they got there. For this first foray, he only wanted her to get used to the feel of the pedals and steering.
As he explained about how the gas and brake pedals worked, and what each gear was used for, she felt a pleasant sense of anticipation welling up inside. This adventure might just turn out to be fun. She asked questions and his patient answers helped release the tension she felt in his presence. The man ran hot and cold.
When he laughed at her rapid fire grilling over the finer points of where to position her hands on the steering wheel, she became distracted by the crinkles in the corner of his eyes, by the deep tones in his voice. They sent shivers through her until she had trouble focusing her mind on what it was he wanted her to do.
Oh well, she was a quick study and if a sixteen year old could learn how to drive, there was no reason she should find it any more difficult.
Zack stopped the car and before she knew it, Kat was behind the wh
eel. He helped her adjust the seat then directed her to set the mirrors.
“Now, firmly press on the brake and move the shifter from park to drive. Then, release the brake and apply gentle pressure to the gas pedal.”
Gentle pressure is a relative term, Kat realized as she thought she was barely touching the pedal but the car shot forward. She mashed the brake and then held on tight as they lurched to a stop. Breathing deeply to quiet her nerves, she gave Zack a sidelong glance expecting him be annoyed. Instead, to her surprise, he had a mile wide grin on his face.
“Sorry,” Kat’s face flamed red.
“You did fine. Now, try it again. Just ease into it.”
This time she knew what to expect so the takeoff was smoother, more controlled and she was fine until she got to the end of the lot and overshot the turn a bit and had to slam on the brakes again.
Still smiling, Zack put her at ease, showed her how to correct the error before directing her to continue driving.
After the fourth circle around the perimeter, Kat was beginning to have fun. This wasn’t so bad after all. Zack’s reassuring presence increased her confidence. The man was a natural born instructor with a surprising amount of patience.
Six times around, then seven and Kat was becoming bored. The car rolled to a stop, she looked over at Zack.
“Now what?” This must have been what it was like to be sixteen and just learning to drive; that feeling of anticipation tinged with fear. Added to the nerve-tightening effect of being nearly shoulder to shoulder with a man who smelled like sin and Kat savored the delicious shot of adrenaline. It made her feel reckless.
“Am I ready for the road?”
“Let’s try turning left first.” The quirk of his eyebrow was at odds with the twinkle in his eye. He was enjoying this, she could tell. For the first time ever, she felt daring around him and was tempted to flirt. Though, just as the thought crossed her mind, so did the realization that the last time she had done any flirting was when she was fourteen. Never mind.
Wherever She Goes (The Psychic Seasons Series Book 4) Page 5