Wherever She Goes (Psychic Seasons

by ReGina Welling

  Looking at Zack, Kat saw his lips twitch again before he managed to school his face back into stern lines. Catching his eye, she gave him a warning look. The girls were frightened enough without him making it worse.

  “No one is getting arrested,” he returned her look with a steady gaze then turned to the second girl and asked her name.

  “Meg Wolcott.” Her bravado fading, Meg considered Gustavia. “We didn’t expect you to call the PoPo. We only came here to get your autograph and maybe talk to you for a few minutes.” She looked away and mumbled, “It’s not a federal offense.”

  A second snort escaped before Tyler could hold it back. Julie poked an elbow into his ribs but it was only for show. She was shaking so hard with held back laughter she couldn’t put any force behind the attempt.

  Zack stepped around the two girls, gave his sister a one armed hug, and said, “I’ll leave these two hardened criminals in your capable hands, Sis. Call me if you need the cuffs.” With a last grin at the others, he walked out the door.

  “Sis?” Meg looked at Gustavia, “He’s your brother?”

  Before Gustavia could answer, Beth dramatically slapped a hand to her forehead and pinned her friend with a glare. “You called him the PoPo. Right in front of her.” Now it was Meg’s turn to hang her head in shame.

  That was when Tyler lost it. Julie had to drag him, still howling, out of the room.

  Beth’s face burned with embarrassment as she said quietly to Gustavia, “I’m sorry. We’ll go, now.” She grabbed Meg’s arm and turned toward the door.

  “No, wait.” Fritzie nudged past Gustavia to stand by the door. The frantic way he looked at her then at the door said time was of the essence and she had made him wait long enough. When the door opened, Julie’s dog Lola, a large but mostly friendly boxer, bounced out from wherever she had been hiding to join Fritzie in a mad dash for the bushes.

  While she waited for the two dogs to finish doing their morning sniffing tour around the yard, Gustavia chatted easily with her two visitors. Before Fritzie pranced back across the porch, Beth and Meg were happily talking about the path that had led them to Hayward House.

  Kat busied herself with pulling out breakfast ingredients while listening to Beth talk about the mythological themes present in Gustavia’s latest books.

  “…said we had drawn a sophisticated parallel between Ember’s search for his mother and Campbell’s monomyth, the hero’s journey,”

  Meg took up the story, “We did a collage and a huge presentation where we also compared Ember to Jason Bourne. It was awesome.”

  _,.-'~'-.,_

  By the time the two teens left Hayward House, they had enough information to do a paper on Gustavia herself and Kat had come to a decision. It was time to go home. Moving in with Julie and Tyler had seemed sensible after Logan kidnapped Gustavia. Kat had gone along with the plan until now but with her visual impairment no longer a factor, she needed to be back in her own space. She didn’t think Logan would target her and neither did Julius when she asked him privately.

  “I have close neighbors, a security system and spirit to watch over me, I’ll be fine,” she explained that night over dinner when Tyler argued that she would be safest by staying put but Kat refused to be swayed. After dinner, she went back to her rooms to begin packing her things.

  Gustavia and Julie followed, ostensibly to help but mostly to continue trying to talk her out of leaving.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve said. I do. But I’m in no more danger there than I am here. Probably a lot less if we’re being honest since Logan and Billy barely knows I exist.”

  Kat knew Gustavia would have moved out after the wedding if Finn hadn’t talked her into adding that half bath at her place. It was supposed to be a minor remodeling job but he’d managed to keep her place in a state of chaos now for weeks—he had no intention of letting her go home alone.

  “Take Lola with you.” Julie suggested. Lola came across as mostly sweet—even slightly goofy—but the one time Logan had tried to break into Hayward House, she proved she could handle herself while chasing off a bad guy. The dog had a soft spot for Kat.

  “No. Thank you, but no. I love her to bits but my yard is just too small. It’s why I never wanted a service dog.”

  The sense that her life was about to begin again filled Kat with purpose.

  Chapter 6

  After a couple minutes of fumbling with the key, Kat finally closed her eyes and unlocked the door by feel. Undoubtedly, having her vision back would make most things in her life easier but in the meantime, she would have adjustments to make.

  From the outside, the house was still as she remembered from her childhood visiting here. Right down to the Madame Zephyr sign next to the door.

  Eyes still tightly shut, she dropped her bags just inside the door and closed it behind her. More used to moving through the space in darkness, she hung up her coat before making her way toward the back of the house.

  Everything felt familiar. She breathed in the powdery scent of the dried flower arrangement on the hall table, the polish her mother used on the dining room table—a task she would be handling from here on out—the sound of the old, wide-plank floorboards in the hallway leading to the kitchen.

  Home.

  Would the kitchen look the same? It had been long years since she had sat at her grandmother’s honey-colored, pine table, warm in a pool of sunlight and counted the teapots lined up on the shelf by the door.

  Four shelves, four pots on each shelf—sixteen. Her favorite, the first one on the top shelf was made from vintage porcelain and painted in a stylized pattern of flowers. It featured stacking creamer and sugar bowls and still held the things her grandmother had stored inside. Little handwritten notes, addresses for people long dead, a marble, several heart shaped stones, recipes, half a dozen used twist ties, some rubber bands, a small key, and three packets of dried yeast that had to be decades past their expiration date by now. Nothing of vital importance, but sorting through those things, touching them brought back memories of a simpler childhood. The time before spirit came into her life.

  Kat opened her eyes then blinked at the darkness only a shade or two lighter than the back of her eyelids. At first, she thought her vision was going again and her heart fell, then began to thump in her chest but after a moment of panic, she realized she had forgotten to switch on the light.

  More new habits, she sighed and made a mental note to remember for next time. The brief periods when channeling Estelle had given back her sight, Kat had been far too busy dealing with the new sensations to spend any extra time in looking around.

  Now, she wandered from room to room and memory to memory. Torn between older, more visual memories and newer ones that only carried touch, scent and sound—seeing each room as it was now, she felt both at home and at the same time, like a stranger seeing everything anew.

  Kat dragged a finger through the light layer of dust that testified to the fact no one had been in the house for weeks and weeks. With a sense of purpose, she spent the next couple hours exploring every nook and cranny, dusting as she went, and making a mental list of things to purchase. For the first time in her adult life, light bulbs were on the list.

  Finally feeling more settled, more connected, a tired Kat carried her bags upstairs to unpack.

  _,.-'~'-.,_

  Twenty-four hours.

  That was the brief respite before the first phone call came in.

  “Hello?” Kat’s talking caller ID announced a number she had never heard before.

  “Hello, is this Kathleen?”

  “Kat,” she corrected automatically.

  “This is Paul,” he said his name as though he expected her to know who he was already.

  “Paul,” she repeated his name in bewilderment.

  “I assume your mom didn’t tell you I’d be calling.”

  “No, she didn’t,” and just like that, Kat knew the matchmaking had begun. “Let me guess, she ran into you in the
grocery store and started asking subtle questions to see if you were single,” Kat predicted.

  “She and my mom are in some kind of knitting club together.”

  “Ah, so they’re in cahoots.”

  “Yes, I believe they’ve formed a gang that goes around forcing susceptible men into making embarrassing phone calls to unsuspecting women. The key word there is unsuspecting.” His droll tone made her smile.

  “Who’s the ringleader? Your mom or mine?”

  “Oh, I think it’s a joint position. So what do you think? Take a chance on a date with me? I mean, we’ve both been duped. We already know we have that in common.”

  Kat thought about it for a moment. She trusted her mother’s taste so how bad could it be.

  “Sure, why not.”

  _,.-'~'-.,_

  Five minutes into dinner, Kat knew this first date would also be a last date. Paul was nice enough and had a wonderful sense of humor but the extra family members who tagged along made it difficult for her to take him seriously. Standing right behind his left shoulder, Aunt Gertrude kept up a running list of his many positive attributes. She wore one of those zip-front housedresses in vivid shades of magenta and sky blue. That coupled with the way she waved her arms around made it incredibly difficult for Kat to focus on the earnest and humble Paul who would have been mortified to hear the things his aunt was saying. The woman should have had a career in infomercials. Before the appetizers hit the table, Kat knew more about Paul than he did about himself, including how incredibly early he had mastered the art of potty training.

  Too. Much. Information.

  The others—a third cousin, a grandfather and two uncles just wanted her to assure their families they were happy in the afterlife—and a little yellow ball of fur circled the group, yipping incessantly.

  At least dealing with his spirit entourage had given her something to concentrate on besides the nervous flutter just under her breastbone.

  Kat pressed fingers to the bridge of her nose hoping to stave off the headache that threatened to rage into full throb. It had been easier to tune spirit out when she only had to deal with one of her senses. Now that she could see them, it was harder to ignore their voices.

  “…the London office.” She pulled her attention back to the conversation. With no idea what Paul had been talking about, she nodded and hoped her response was appropriate.

  When Gertrude mentioned how his “tushy” looked when he was a baby, Kat choked on her drink and abruptly excused herself to the ladies room surreptitiously motioning for Gertrude to follow her. Once in the relative privacy, she rounded on the spirit.

  “Stop, you have to stop.” She softened, her voice, “Look, I can tell that you care about him and want him to be happy but you have to know he wouldn’t appreciate you telling me all the intimate details of his life. Give us both some privacy and take the rest of the family with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gertrude said. “He’s such a nice boy. Please give him another chance.”

  Kat grinned. “Get that dog away from me and you’ve got a deal.”

  She returned to the table determined to enjoy the rest of her dinner.

  Paul looked up as she approached the table, a pleasant smile on his face. He was attractive enough, she supposed. Crisply curling dark hair, even white teeth flashed above a square chin. Maybe his top lip was a little thin, but he was the kind of cute any woman would give a second look.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as soon as she sat down, “I’ve been rambling on about my job this whole time when what I really want is to learn more about you. Tell me, what do you do?”

  And there it was—the dreaded question. Kat searched his face looking for some clue that would give her an idea how he might react. This was an unexpected aspect of dating. Since she had already decided against a second date—even if Gertrude toned it down a notch, this guy had way too much baggage in the spirit department—Kat took a deep breath and brazened it out.

  “I’m a psychic medium.”

  Paul’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline and suddenly the look on his face was no longer cute.

  “What did you say?”

  Stomach now dropping toward her shoes, Kat maintained an even tone, “I said I am a psychic medium,” then she pinned him with a look that just dared him to make a big deal of it. Would he turn out to be a skeptic or use this chance to try and finagle a reading out of her?

  Instead, he swallowed heavily and changed the subject. Given the choice behind finding his attitude mortifying or amusing, Kat chose the latter.

  She even managed to keep her smirk on the inside when she caught him surreptitiously glancing at his watch while she was checking the clock on the wall behind him. Would this disaster of a date ever end?

  Clearly, this dating thing was going to be a lot more complicated than she had expected. Kat drank a private toast to hoping the next one would be less awkward while she listened to his nervous attempt to ignore the elephant in the room—not too easy when said elephant was twirling a flaming baton and dancing while wearing a hot pink tutu.

  When he dropped her back at Hayward House, his feet barely touched the porch before he hotfooted it back to his car. Kat waggled her fingers at his taillights as they disappeared from view.

  Next time she and her friends got together to dish about their experiences, she finally had a story to tell. That alone made the entire evening worthwhile. Kat threw her head back and laughed out loud before turning to walk through the door.

  Chapter 7

  Fifteen steps from the bathroom door to the corner where she kept her fitness equipment. Kat counted them as she walked; it was a habit she no longer needed. Half an hour on the treadmill—or dreadmill—as she preferred to call it, was on her list for the morning. She had just settled into her running stride when the doorbell pealed twice followed by frantic knocking on her front door.

  “Give me a minute,” she muttered while the knocking and ringing continued. Kat felt for the braille label pasted over the on/off switch and paced herself as the belt slowed to a stop. How long, she wondered, would it take before she got used to looking for the switch with her eyes instead of using her fingertips.

  “Who is it?” She called out before she remembered she could have just looked through the peephole. So many changes. A little frisson of nervous energy settled in her belly. Spontaneous visitors were not a rarity in her line of business but this wasn’t business, she knew, when her senses went on alert anyway.

  “Kat, it’s Zack. I need your help. Please, open the door. Hurry.”

  Since her depth perception was still a work in progress, Kat slammed her hip on the hall table as she made her way to the door. She winced as the sharp point bruised her tender flesh. Stumbling and dashing away tears of pain, she pulled open the door to let him in. “What is it? What happened? Is it…”

  “No, sorry.” He should have realized her mind would go there first. “No, it’s nothing to do with Logan, everyone is safe. Everyone except a little boy named Noel who went missing from his house over in Landon this morning. His mother is frantic.” Zack reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a photo and a small, stuffed dog. He handed her the photo, which she looked at briefly before passing it back.

  He then pressed the stuffed toy into her hand and ignored the little spark of awareness that rose up in his belly. Something about her always triggered that same intensity as his cop sense, a recognition that stabbed into his gut and twisted.

  “You want me to help you find him? I thought you didn’t believe in me.”

  “You’re not exactly Santa Claus and I’m not even sure why I came here but I thought you might be able to help. Maybe I was wrong.” He reached for the toy she still held and with the intention of pulling it away from her. As he stepped near, her breath caught.

  He trusted her enough to come here when he could be out searching for the boy. There was hope for him yet.

  “No, I want to try.” She yanked the toy back ignoring
the electric feeling of his hand brushing against hers and after a short tugging match where she felt the toy starting to rip, he finally let go and raised his hands in surrender.

  “It’s a little boy. Of course I’ll do what I can.” She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “Tell me about him, how did it happen?”

  “He’s four. He was wearing a red striped shirt, blue pants, and a pair of snow boots. He’s blond, blue eyes…” he trailed off when she held up her hand.

  “None that visual stuff helps me. What I need is a sense of his family life. What was happening right before he went missing?”

  “Mom was doing laundry while the boy played in his room, Dad was at work. He does maintenance for the apartment complex down on Grove Street. His boss sent him to the city to pick up pipes and a gas fitting. If it was a kidnapping, we’ve ruled out the father and he’s on his way home now. No friction there, happy family. The front door was open, no signs of forced entry, or a struggle. No known enemies.”

  Kat clutched the stuffed dog and tried to concentrate on little Noel, pick up any sensory cues that would lead to finding the boy while Zack paced. His energy was like a caged beast pushing at the bars, trying to break free from confinement.

  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.”