“Tell me about her. I mean, we all know she’s psychic, but what’s she really like?”
“She’s nice. She’s sensitive. I mean it, she won’t be able to deal with your anger. I made a mistake when I met her and I got upset. It’s a physical thing for her. She literally wilted before my eyes. I’ve seen her several times since. If I’m happy, you can see she’s happy because I am. If I’m a little off or down, she responds to that.” Sam shot him a skeptical stare. “Look, I don’t know exactly how it works with her. I just know she’s different. You can’t go in there with your emotions all over the place, or your anger out of control.”
Sam took a calming breath and looked around them as they rode through a large open field of green grass with the forest bordering their progress. Peaceful, the green of the land and the clear blue of the sky. He loved Colorado. He came here when he needed to recharge. He and Elizabeth stayed at the lake house as often as they could manage. This is where they spent their vacation time. He could see why Morgan had chosen to move here. He loved the calm tranquil setting too.
“I’ll do my best to keep myself in check. Why does she want to see me?”
“I told her about the murders last week when I saw her. This morning, she asked me to contact you and ask you to come. She didn’t say anything more.”
“You had to tell her what happened.”
“Yes. She didn’t know anything about it.”
“So, without her connection to Tyler she didn’t know I was working on the case.”
“I don’t know about that. She doesn’t really talk about what she can do. She’s quiet most of the time. She asks about the kids, you and Elizabeth, everyone. It’s like she’s been a part of the family. I kind of think of her that way. She’s like a sister.”
“Tyler will be pissed when he finds out every time he’s been here over the last year she was next door. He was so close to her.”
“Do you remember when you came home early and brought Tyler with you when Elizabeth took maternity leave?”
“Yeah, Morgan helped us wrap up a case early. Tyler decided to come for a short visit.”
“That’s the day I met her. She told me you two would come home early. When you actually showed up and surprised everyone, I was completely stunned. I didn’t believe her. Not until I saw you both walk through the door.”
“So, she’s the real deal,” Sam said, amazed.
“You know she is.”
“It’s different having her predictions and clues come secondhand through Tyler. It’s another thing to meet her and have her do it in front of me.” Sam shook his head.
“Are you nervous?” Jack laughed. “Sam Turner, FBI agent, nervous about meeting a woman.”
“I’m just not sure what to expect,” Sam said and meant it. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about Morgan. He knew things about her that Jack didn’t know. He didn’t want to make a bigger mess out of things with her than they already had. He didn’t know how she’d feel about him digging in her past and finding all the buried skeletons.
“She’s just like anyone else. See.” Jack pointed to the woman kneeling in the garden as they came out of the trees and made their way across the wide pasture. “She’s just a woman.”
“Just a woman, my ass. That is one gorgeous woman. Are you kidding me? That’s Morgan?”
“Yep,” Jack said with a wide grin.
“No wonder she’s been haunting Tyler ever since he saw her five years ago. No man could forget her.”
Jack smiled and dismounted Blue. He tethered Blue to the low fence surrounding Morgan’s garden and waited as she approached.
Sam sat mesmerized by the angel coming toward him. That’s all he could think. She looked like what he imagined angels looked like in heaven. Her softly waving gold hair blew in the breeze. Her amazing blue eyes held him in place. Not very tall, but he felt her presence. Maybe it was a trick of the light off her hair, or sun-kissed golden skin, he wasn’t sure, but he thought she glowed.
Ordinary in every way, and extraordinary in so many. She wore simple worn blue jeans, a bit of dirt staining the knees, and a white blouse. She carried a pair of gardening gloves. Ordinary. Slim, but no mistaking the womanly curves, from the swell of her breasts in the open collar of her shirt to the slight flare of her hips.
She walked toward him, completely unaware of her appeal. The swing of her hips and the hint of a smile on her soft, full lips could bring a man to his knees. And then she spoke and her sultry voice made him think of hot nights and soft, smooth blues.
“I don’t haunt Tyler. I’m not a ghost. Like Jack said, I’m just a woman.” She smiled as she came out of her garden.
Sam looked from Morgan to Jack and shook his head to clear it.
“She does that,” Jack said referring to Morgan knowing what they’d talk about on the ride over. “It’s kind of creepy. You’ll get used to it.”
Sam dropped down from his horse and approached Morgan. He did something she never saw coming. He wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest tightly and whispered into her ear. “I am so happy to meet you. I’ve waited a long time to say thank you. Thank you for helping me with Elizabeth. Thank you for helping with all the other cases.”
“Oh. Well. Damn. Elizabeth is a lucky woman.” She held on to Sam because it felt good to let someone be close. It had been a long time since someone hugged her. Her eyes got misty, and she had to take a breath to calm herself. “You think she’d mind if I keep you?”
Sam chuckled. She held on to him like she had no intention of letting him go. “I think she’d like me back, but you can borrow me for a little while. We have a lot to talk about.”
“I know.” She reluctantly let him go and took a step back. “Come in. I have iced tea and brownies made.”
She led the way up the wide porch and through the screen door. She loved the way it banged shut after the men came into the house. She spent all of her time alone, and company was a treat. She’d seen Jack off and on over the last year. A busy man, after checking on his horses he usually headed back to his own home and family. He stopped to talk to her whenever he could, and she appreciated his time and company.
She really liked the horses. They made the property less lonely. She liked hearing them whinny and nicker in the pastures. She took them treats and petted them as often as she could. She was working up the courage to ask Jack to teach her to ride. She could get her own. She’d buy one of the horses from Jack. The black one with the white line on his nose and head. She liked him and secretly named him Blaze.
Surprised again, Sam liked her home. Pretty, like Morgan, simple and charming. The entry opened into a large family room that adjoined the kitchen and dining area at the rear of the house. A set of glass double doors went out the back to a deck and patio beyond. The family room had a large river-rock fireplace with a chunky wood mantle. A large vase of flowers sat on the mantel beside a framed photo of a family sitting at a picnic table in a park. The woman resembled Morgan, only with shorter hair. The man, in his early thirties with light brown hair, smiled at the woman and held a little girl on his lap. The boy in the photo looked about two, and he had jelly on his chin and laughed with a huge smile. A nice looking family.
On the table, next to a brown leather couch, lay several books. One lay opened, face down to hold her page. School textbooks and paperback novels lined the shelves of a tall bookcase. Many of them looked well worn. He could see her sitting in the chaise, reading her books as the sun poured through the large bank of windows.
A rustic farm table with bench seats on both sides and a spindle-back chair on each end took up most the space in her dining room. The wrought-iron lamp over the table complimented the rustic feel of the house. Fresh flowers graced the room in several colorful glass vases. Some were large and others small. Their sweet fragrance filled the room. He knew she’d cut them from her flourishing garden. Pots of herbs lined the shelf in the window above the kitchen sink.
The house
was homey. And quiet.
He hated thinking of Morgan here all alone. Day after day.
“Would you like to sit in the family room, or here at the kitchen table?”
“The table’s fine.” He took the platter of brownies from her and set them on the table. Jack had the pitcher of ice tea and they both waited for Morgan to arrange their glasses and take her seat before they took their seats.
Morgan brushed her hand over the smooth wooden surface and looked at him and Jack with a sadness that tore at Sam. He glanced around the huge room and imagined her there alone.
“You’ve never had anyone sit at this table with you.”
Morgan’s gaze locked with him. It hadn’t been a question, but a softly spoken statement letting her know he understood her just a little. “I’ve been alone for a long time.”
“I like all the flowers. Your garden is beautiful. You must spend a lot of time working out there.”
She thought it nice he took the time to see her as more than just a psychic. He wanted to find out what else interested her. She hadn’t missed his casual perusal of her home. She knew he took in every detail and tucked them away in case he needed them later.
“The garden is peaceful. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. I can go out there and work for a few hours and have tangible results. I can watch the flowers bloom and know I had a hand in their care. It’s my way of giving back a little of what I take.”
She wondered how he’d interpret that statement. Most people wouldn’t think of that, or give of themselves in such a way. Others did it without thinking of it as giving back to their surroundings for what they take from them.
She’s normal with a little something different about her, Sam thought. She wanted to be accepted and acknowledged as just another person on this earth, but she wasn’t. She was different, and the difference made her special. You could see it in her eyes. She saw more than others. Right now, those eyes were a bright light blue. Outside she’d been cautious about meeting him, and they’d been shaded and just a bit dark.
“Kind of what I think about being with the FBI. I’m just one more good guy to go up against the bad. My own little balance on the scales of life.”
“You want to fight the good fight and protect those that can’t protect themselves.”
He smiled. Every cop felt that way. The police motto was “To Protect and to Serve.” It’s what they did. It’s what they were. At least, that’s how it should be.
“I have to say, I’m a little disappointed there isn’t a single crystal ball in the place. There aren’t any pewter dragons or fairies sitting on toadstools.” Those were the kinds of things he’d found in the murdered psychics’ shops and homes. Again, Morgan was different.
“What kind of psychic are you?” He wanted to ease into the subject. A little levity might get them into the conversation without putting her on edge.
“The fairies are in the garden, of course. There aren’t any toadstools. Fairies live in the lilies,” she smiled. “They’re like little balls of golden sunlight. They die if you say you don’t believe in them, and when they think happy thoughts, they can fly,” she said whimsically.
“As for the crystal ball, sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t own one. I don’t need it to do what I do. As for the cauldron, well, it’s how I whipped up this batch of tea. You know, a little wing of bat and eye of newt. Poof and voilà, iced tea.” She’d tried to keep her voice light, but a hint of annoyance tinged her words.
He was teasing her, but she wanted him to like her. She wanted to be accepted by him and everyone else in their family circle. She wanted to belong. She used to feel like she belonged, right up until she lost her connection with Tyler.
She didn’t like people making her out to be something she wasn’t. Like something bad or evil. She was just a person who’d been given an extraordinary gift. It had taken her a long time to get to the point where her gift was more blessing than curse.
She didn’t trust him enough yet not to judge her. She probably already thought he had judged her and found her to be the witch everyone had called her as a little girl. Sam liked the whimsical way she spoke of fairies in the lilies, like a leftover fantasy from a childhood that had been anything but sweet and charming.
“Jack tells me you’ve lived here for about two years. I know you met Tyler in Texas. Where’d you live before that?”
“You have an interesting mind.”
“Can you read my mind?”
“Sometimes. You have very good boundaries set up. It’s what makes you a good investigator and undercover agent. What I mean is that you look at things like a puzzle. While I can’t see the actual information you have, or what you’re looking for, when I look at you as you ask me questions, I see floating puzzle pieces. I have a feeling that with each new bit of information I give you, you’ll assign it a puzzle piece and fit it to its partner until you make the whole picture.”
“Is that how you do what you do? You see images of things. I know the clues you give us are all abstract images or impressions. Is that how it comes to you?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s very specific, like a dream of what’s happened or will happen.
“How to put it in simple terms?” She sat back and tapped her foot on the floor. “I might see a duck. Depending on the situation, or the person, the duck could mean simply a waterfowl, or look out. It could mean the person needs to let whatever it is roll off their back like water off a duck. What I see isn’t always literal. It’s taken me a long time to understand the things I see.
“To give you an example you can relate to, when I met Jack the first time, he rode up on his horse. When I look at that horse, I see a blue horse with a shield on its chest. Now, since you know Jack, you know his favorite color is blue. Blue, the horse, is his favorite and named for Jack’s favorite color. The shield is a little harder to relate, unless you know Jack and Jenna. I can see a past in which Blue stood guard over her. He thinks of her as his to protect, hence the shield.
“If you and Tyler had a case and I told you I see a man on a blue horse who has a shield on its chest, you wouldn’t know what to do with that information. Once you investigate and found out that the man rides a horse by the name of Blue and he protects his mistress it makes sense.”
Jack laughed. “Is that really what you see when you look at my horse?”
“I see a lot more, but that just illustrates to Sam what I see and how I see it. It isn’t simple.”
Not simple at all, and he didn’t need to hear the trace of irritation in her voice to know it frustrated her sometimes. He could just imagine having a picture in his head and not knowing what it meant. At times, some of his cases felt the same way. He had pieces of the puzzle and no idea what picture those pieces should make.
Now she was making him think like her. Creepy.
“Stop thinking I’m creepy. You and Tyler do that far too much, and I have to say, it’s annoying. You’d think by now all of you would be used to me and what I can do.”
Sam nodded at her in agreement and steered the conversation back to her past. “So, back to the question still on the table. Where did you live before Texas?”
“Ever the detective,” Morgan mused. So he wanted the details of her past. He must already know about her parents and her disappearance. Better to take the direct route than playing Twenty Questions. They’d wasted enough time. They needed to get to the heart of the conversation. That meant getting to the murders by way of her nightmare past.
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
“YOU KNOW ABOUT my parents?”
Definitely a question. Sam had to stop assuming she knew everything he knew. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. He’d seen enough TV shows and movies with psychics that he should know they didn’t see everything. It worked more like a switch, either on or off. Morgan’s switch seemed to be on more than anyone else’s.
“I read the files and the newspaper accounts. Yeah, I know,” Sam sai
d.
Jack didn’t know about this part of the conversation, so he kept his mouth shut and let Sam do his thing. If Morgan wanted to share, she would. She did things her own way, and he’d respect that.
“Does Tyler know?” She didn’t necessarily want him to know one more thing about her that made her odd. Not everyone had a father who murdered their mother. Tyler would be angry she hadn’t told him. Another thing she didn’t share when he’d shared so much with her.
“Yeah, he knows the basics. I didn’t fill him in on everything I’ve uncovered, since he’s been gone and pissed me off.”
She wanted to ask about his being gone, but she held her tongue. None of her business, even if she wanted it to be.
“Then you know my father killed my mother. They said he did it in a rage of passion when he discovered she was leaving him.”
“That’s what the police said. It isn’t what you said.”
“They didn’t believe me.”
“No, they didn’t,” Sam said sadly. “Instead they called you a witch and people protested outside the courthouse and chanted hateful things at you. Some even threw things when they brought you into the courthouse. The press fed the frenzy and the defense attorney made you out to be crazy. He tried to discredit you on the stand and advised the court you should be sent to an institution for evaluation. It’s what your father wanted to do with you.”
Jack let out a disgusted grunt, outraged for Morgan. He didn’t like the idea of people treating her badly and Morgan appreciated his support and understanding.
“Oh, he didn’t want to have me committed. He wanted to kill me. He started the cause to get the devil removed from his daughter’s possessed body. After that, every religious zealot and fanatic came out of the woodwork. They didn’t come to get justice for my mother and see my father pay for what he did to her. They wanted to see the witch, who could see things. Devil, demon, witch, crazy, psycho, I’ve been called them all since I can remember.”
Chasing Morgan Page 9