"I hear it's Kate Mansfield," a boy passing by on foot said.
The four of us looked at each other.
"No way," Zeke said, climbing out.
"I can't believe it," Tamzen said, her hand over her mouth. "Kate Mansfield is dead?"
I leaned forward in my seat and felt a dreaded sense of déjà vu. Kate Mansfield was a year older than us and a rising senior. Now she was dead? I felt Zeke's eyes on me, and I looked at him. His expression wasn't the usual sneering, condescending one, but of curiosity.
"I just spoke to her the other day," Dean said, his mouth agape.
"Come on, let's find out what's going on," Tamzen said.
I grabbed the top of the door with every intention of climbing out, but I hesitated.
Tamzen noticed. "Let's go."
Had I dreamed about the death of Kate Mansfield? I didn't want to find out. "I'll just wait here."
Her eyes went wide. "Are you serious? Maybe you can see something important."
I studied my lap.
"Guinan—"
"Leave her alone," Zeke said. "Come on."
He and I maintained eye contact for the briefest moment, and I sensed an emotion from him that surprised me: compassion. The moment passed. He turned away, and he and Tamzen walked toward the growing group. She looked back at me resentfully.
"I wonder why Kate was out here," Dean said. He was still in the Jeep with me. I knew he was dying of curiosity, too. "You okay?"
I tried to sound casual. "Yeah." Zeke had removed the vehicle's top that morning. Sweat broke out on my face in the merciless sun and windless air. "I just don't want to see anymore dead bodies this summer."
He nodded and gave me an understanding look. "I don't blame you."
We sat in silence as cars rolled by hunting for parking spaces as though their occupants were attending a sporting event.
"You don't have to wait here with me."
"I know I don't have to."
I smiled at him. There was an openness in his face. I knew that with him, things would be easy.
"I know you're curious. Go on. I'll be okay."
"You sure?"
I nodded. He hesitated, then left. Zeke and Tamzen looked back at the same time when they heard him approaching. Two police officers emerged from the woods. They strung crime scene tape across the path. A Ragland County Sheriff's car stopped several cars ahead of the Jeep in the middle of the road. Two deputies got out and hustled across the field. From this distance, I barely made out what they said, but the gestures were clear enough. They were moving the crowd back.
I realized I was holding my breath and exhaled loudly. The first time I saw a corpse, I had nightmares for a month. I still found the whole thing macabre, looking into the unseeing eyes of a dead person and hearing their fading final thoughts before they dissipated. The bodies themselves didn't freak me out, anymore. Death was as natural as life.
Mrs. Lucas dying was one thing, but a schoolmate dying was a different story. My cell buzzed in the back pocket of my jeans. I looked at the grinning image on the screen and groaned.
"Hi, Granddad."
"I see you sitting out there. Come on over, hon."
"Do I have to?"
He paused. "You've always had a choice. I know I can be a real pain in the—"
"Is it Kate Mansfield?"
A deep sigh. "Yeah. Looks like she was hit on the back of the head. Hard."
I closed my eyes and swiped sweat off my forehead.
"Bound to be clues around here," he said.
This felt vaguely like a guilt-trip. I had a choice, huh? A few seconds later, I saw Rory tap him on the shoulder. I heard muffled speech. "Gotta go."
I shoved the phone back in my pocket.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I climbed out of the Jeep. I walked purposefully toward my friends, arms folded across my chest. I made brief eye contact with several people along the way. A few whispered to each other when they saw me.
Twenty-something Stacy O'Connor gave me a sideways glance. Whenever we made eye contact, I sensed fear. She was cashier at the Food Mart, and I tried to avoid her register because I knew I terrified her. Pete Wilson, a middle-aged man who worked at the post office, had no fear. He had plenty of unwholesome emotions, though. Adam Carver stood beside Pete, his cell phone still clutched to his ear. He held my gaze, and I sensed a mix of fear, grief, and longing.
By the time I reached my friends, my grandfather spotted me. I thought he'd call me over, but he didn't. He gave me a slight nod and resumed his conversation. I exhaled.
Tamzen, rubbing her arms, jumped when my shoulder brushed hers. "Geez!"
"Sorry."
A woman wearing a white forensics field uniform wandered from behind some bushes several yards from the crime scene tape. She walked beyond it and disappeared into the trees. I heard someone behind me crying. I looked back and saw Michelle Foster, Kate's best friend, her face wet with tears and sweat. I noticed that most people were wiping their faces. There was no relief from the sun in this tree-less part of Jepson's Point.
Dean moved closer to me. "The police won't tell us anything."
"I think I heard your grandfather say something about calling the Mansfield's," Tamzen said, still rubbing her arms. "Somebody actually murdered that girl?"
"We don't know if it's murder," Zeke said.
My mind drifted back to the dream I had at his house, of standing among the trees in the dark and getting hit on the head. For a moment I pretended I was like everybody else, a morbidly curious spectator. But I wasn't like everybody else. I felt eyes on me from every direction.
Just my luck my grandfather picked this moment to walk over. I wanted to sink into the ground.
It was surreal. I didn't recall him asking me to walk with him, but there I was, moving beside him as though in slow motion. We stepped around the crime scene tape and walked deeper into the woods. I was about to ask how deep we needed to go when Kate's body provided the answer. A twig snapped beneath my feet, and the woman from forensics looked up. I studied my surroundings to take my mind off the body. I'd assumed Kate was found at or near the spot where kids parked and made out. This area was less-trafficked. I guess that was the point.
The woman nodded at my grandfather and stepped back. One of the sheriff's deputies watched me, clearly confused. My ears felt clogged, and sounds reached my brain from far away. Granddad squeezed my shoulder.
"Ready?"
I nodded, and he guided me forward. Kate lay on her back, her normally olive skin pallid and her eyes open. She wore dark-brown shorts and a white, sleeveless T-shirt. I focused on the position of her body. Something was off.
"Anything you can tell us, hon."
"Did they turn her over for me and open her eyes?" I said. After a scene had been processed, my grandfather usually had a prone body turned over.
"She was found just like this," he said. "On her back, eyes open."
In the dream, I think she died on her left side. I was less certain whether her eyes had been closed. Focusing on the discrepancy was giving me a headache. "What time do they think she was killed?"
"Unofficially, between midnight and three," he said.
Kate might have rolled over to attempt to escape. Or the killer might have done it after she died. Whatever the cause, her final thoughts might clear things up.
"I'm ready."
My grandfather removed his hand from my shoulder, and I stepped forward. I gazed down at Kate's face. I saw traces of the pretty girl I remembered. Her head lay in puddle of congealed blood, her dark hair sticky with it. Her lips, slightly parted, were smeared with the coral-pink lipstick she always wore. Her green eyes were opaque now. I almost expected them to focus on me. I shuddered and felt Granddad approach.
"I'm all right," I said. I took a deep breath and moved closer until I was directly over her face.
"What the hell is she doing?"
I tuned out the noise, peered into Kate's eyes, and focused on
the words forming in my head.
No...no...he wouldn't do this. He loves me.
I strained to see the thoughts that scrolled through Kate's dying brain. Her mother. Her father. Her brother. The woods. Eric. Tim.
Wouldn't leave me alone.
"Guinan!"
I looked around, confused. I was on my knees and gasping.
"What did you see?" my grandfather said, lifting me off the ground.
"I…"
"Give her some air."
"She's all right. Come on, sit down."
"No, wait," I said. "I want to see more."
Granddad eyed me skeptically. I'd never made this request before, but I had to know if she saw her killer, someone who wasn't Tim. This time my grandfather held on to me as I looked into Kate's dead eyes again. But there were no thoughts. Just a twinge on the back of my head.
"She was hit on the back of the head?"
Granddad nodded.
I looked into his expectant face. "She was sad about what was happening. She thought about her family..." I trailed off and leaned closer. "She was thinking about Eric Rodman and Tim, and I saw the words 'Wouldn't leave me alone.'"
He went pale, swallowed, and glanced at the people nearby. I imitated him. The forensics woman watched me curiously, and the sheriff's deputy standing near the tape facing the crowd craned his neck to stare at me.
"Are you sure?"
I took a deep breath. "I'm positive." Then I told him I'd dreamed of Kate being killed, but in the dream, she'd been hit on the side of the head, not the back. When he didn't reply, I continued nervously. "But it's impossible, right? I dreamed of the future once, a long time ago."
The expression on his face changed so rapidly, I thought he was having another heart attack. My skin felt like it was sizzling. "What?"
Worry lines creased his forehead. "I need to tell you something about your grandmother. She wasn't completely honest with you."
Chapter Five
Tamzen wanted to come to the police station with me, but my grandfather convinced her to leave with Zeke and Dean. He and I sat in his office with the door closed. My insides felt like jelly.
"It was about twenty-five years ago," he said. "Your grandmother told her friend, Patsy Kroger, about a dream she'd had." He leaned forward on the hard, faux-leather couch, elbows on his knees. I sat beside him, my back pressed against the cool seat. "Patsy's uncle had a farm over in Hudson. One night, Tilda had a dream. She saw part of the barn's roof collapse on Patsy, killing her instantly."
I furrowed my brow. I'd spoken to Miss Patsy last month at the grocery store.
"Now most people in town had heard about your grandmother's clairvoyance. Most thought it was phony. A few considered it satanic. Anyway, Patsy didn't judge her. Tilda had been reluctant to tell her about the dream at first, but she felt she had to. That's when Patsy said the family had planned to help out on the farm that weekend."
As he spoke, I considered the implications of telling someone you knew when she'd die.
"Well, Patsy, bless her heart, believed her friend and canceled the family's plans."
"So Grandma saw the future. And changed it."
We were both silent. The commotion outside the office was an unrelenting buzz. Every now and then, someone shouted above the noise to get someone else's attention. A couple of sheriff's deputies took up space as well. The Ridge Grove Police Department was required by state law to work with the county sheriff in cases as major as homicide.
"She never told me," I said.
My grandfather looked at this hands and rubbed them together. "She'd been having precog dreams her whole life."
"Precog dreams? That's what she called them?"
He nodded. "She didn't have them often. Every now and then, but often enough to drive her crazy. She didn't tell you a lot of things, and I'm sorry about that. You should also know that—"
Someone knocked on the door.
He groaned. "Yeah?"
The door opened a crack, and Rory peered in, his normally neatly cut blond hair slightly tousled. "Sam said he needs to see you, chief."
"Can't it wait?"
"Doubt it. He wants to pick your brain before talking to the media."
"The media?" My grandfather stood abruptly. "Oh, good Lord." He turned to me. "I don't want you to say anything to anybody, including Tamzen, about what happened out there."
I couldn't see myself telling Tim's wife, son, or his son's girlfriend that he might have killed Kate.
"We'll talk more at home," he said.
Before I could utter another word, he shut the door. I stood and walked to the lone window in the small office, which faced the parking lot. People milled around between cars and a Channel 7 News van. The police had yet to say if Kate Mansfield had been murdered. They hadn't said much of anything. But I'd seen the blood pooled at the back of her head and saw her thoughts.
Her death was no accident.
And I saw it happen before it happened.
***
Granddad asked Rory to drive me home. We left the building from the rear entrance. When I'd first arrived at the station, a reporter asked me if I was "some kind of medium." My grandfather wanted to avoid such questions on the way out.
"Isaac told me not to say anything," Rory said as he pulled up in front of my house. "So I won't. Unless you want to volunteer information." I looked at him. He had the decency to look sheepish. "Sorry."
"No problem," I said, climbing out. Before I reached the front door, my cell phone vibrated. Tamzen had called several times already, so when I looked at the number, I expected to see her image on the screen. But I saw only a number, one I didn't recognize it. Was it a reporter? I answered, anyway.
"Hey. Are you okay?"
It was Dean. My face relaxed into a smile. I plopped down on the front steps and a ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah. I'm home now."
"Want some company?"
I realized I was gripping the phone. I cleared my throat. "Um...sure. Where are you?"
"At home. Zeke just dropped me off."
While I waited for Dean, I went inside, washed my face, changed my shirt, brushed my hair, and brought two cold bottles of iced tea outside. I sat on the swing-bench, batted away flies, and thought about the best friends. Zeke and Dean were an odd pair. A few inches shorter than Zeke, Dean was more personable and tended to put me at ease. His laid-back style contrasted with Zeke's rigidity.
Tamzen used to have a crush on Dean, but when she found out I was crushing on Zeke, she decided she liked Zeke. I was convinced he went out with her to spite me. Or maybe that's what I wanted to believe.
I watched Dean pull up in his father's blue sedan, climb out, and take lanky strides up the walkway. He smiled, eased himself down on the swing beside me, and opened one of the bottles.
"I heard that reporter shouting at you," he said, taking a long swig of the tea. "We followed you to the station, thought about coming in, for support."
"That's sweet, but Granddad wasn't letting anybody see me."
He wiped his mouth with his thumb. "So, do the dead speak to you?"
Startled by the question, I picked up my tea and squeezed the cool bottle between my hands. "Zeke hasn't filled in the details?"
"I don't really ask him questions about you."
He turned his head so I could look at his eyes. I sensed the honesty and determination behind them.
"I don't communicate with the dead, not the way I think you mean."
He chuckled. "In a way, you do. It's like they're speaking to you."
I hadn't thought about it that way.
"What about the living," he said. "Have you tried to read minds?"
"No," I said quickly. "And I don't want to. Being able to tell when someone is deceptive is bad enough. I mean, could you handle knowing what somebody really thinks about your new haircut or your favorite outfit? Or maybe they think your head's shaped funny, and you hear things that hurt your feelings."
I was ram
bling. Dean was smiling. We sat silently for a while, drinking tea and rocking on the swing-bench.
"What about your mother?" he said. "Is she psy...I mean, like you?"
I shook my head.
"You shouldn't be embarrassed about what you can do. I know Zeke can be a jerk, but it's just fear based on ignorance."
"I guess." As long as people didn't call me a witch, I believed I could help people.
Dean chugged the rest of his tea. "I've heard stories about how the government has these secret paranormal programs. Have you ever heard of the Ranch?"
I snorted. "I've heard rumors. A place where they train and 'protect' people with psychic powers."
"You don't believe it exists?"
I shook my head. Truthfully, I hadn't given it much thought. It certainly didn't sound like somewhere I'd want to be.
Dean cleared his throat. "Listen, I wanted to ask you—"
We both looked toward the street. A news van and two cars pulled up at the curb in front of the house. The van had barely stopped when a woman with dark-red hair got out. She wore a light-blue sleeveless blouse, brown slacks, and matching sandals.
"Guinan Jones?" she called out. "Sara Sparks from Inside Edge. Do you have a minute to answer some questions? You knew the victim, Kate Mansfield, didn't you? Young man, you knew her as well?"
Dean groaned. "Get lost."
The woman gave a tittering laugh and flipped her hair. She snapped her fingers at the cameraman emerging from the van, a short guy who wore his Carolina Panthers baseball cap backward. He hoisted a camera on his shoulder and pointed it at us.
"Ready for your close-up?" Dean said, chuckling.
Actually, I was ready to throw up.
"No comment," I said loud enough for her to hear.
"The rumor is you can communicate with the dead," she said, ignoring my remark and inching up the walkway. "Is that what you claim?"
"I don't claim anything. And you're trespassing."
She stopped short, took a few steps back to the sidewalk, and continued with her questions. "Kate Mansfield was bludgeoned to death. Did she tell you who killed her?"
Black-Eyed Moon (A Guinan Jones Paranormal Mystery #1) Page 3