Deadly Visions
A PsyChick Cozy Mystery Book One
Aubrey Harper
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Aubrey Harper
All rights reserved.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Author’s Note
Also by Aubrey Harper
Chapter 1
A man. His back to me. He’s holding a gun. He shoots another man. I see the surprised look on the other man’s face as the gun is fired. He falls. Shot in the chest. Looks pretty dead to me.
It happened again.
The same vision keeps coming to me. Now it’s even invading my dreams. I wake up in a cold sweat.
“What do you want from me?” I ask the ceiling, the universe, it doesn’t really matter now.
I get up and put on my clothes quickly. I need something to keep my mind off of this terrible vision that keeps haunting me.
There’s already coffee in the pot. I take a cupful and sit down at the small kitchen table. The only upside of having a roommate is that sometimes she makes coffee before you get up.
“You’re up,” my roommate, Lily, says. She has shoulder length red hair and she already looks presentable. I guess you have to be if you’re working as a secretary for one of the biggest law firms in the city.
“That obvious?” I say, holding my head.
“Another nightmare?”
“Another vision.”
She rolls her eyes but gives me a knowing look. She knows all about my visions. She also knows that they usually come true one way or another.
“You can’t keep ignoring it. God, the universe, call it what you will, obviously wants you to save that guy.”
She takes one of those breakfast bars and throws it into her purse. No time to eat breakfast. As usual. Lily, besides being my roommate, is also my best friend. Actually, she’s my only friend. When I moved to the city I didn’t know anyone. I met her while I was investigating one of my visions (I just happened to save her fiancé from a horrible accident). The fiancé had moved on not soon after, something about finally living his life now that he got a second chance, but I stuck around. We became roommates the day he moved out.
“But why do I have to be the one to save him? Why can’t the universe send that vision to someone else?”
“I don’t make the rules, Callie,” she said. “I gotta be on my way. Call me if there are any developments, all right?”
She was out the door before I could say anything else.
But how could I have any developments to report when the vision was also vague. I knew neither man, and neither seemed to be wearing anything particularly distinct, like say a uniform with a helpful name tag on it. If only things were that easy.
I turned on the news but there was no report of any shootings in the area. If I knew the universe, the guy I saw probably didn’t even live in the city. That’s right. Some of my visions involved people that could be living miles away, across the country even.
I decided after the last case, a case in which I failed to save a young girl from being killed by a serial killer but helped catch him, that I wasn’t cut out for this stuff. Everyone kept saying that I cracked the case. Even some of the cops said, in private whispers of course, that they couldn’t have caught the guy without my help. But I knew better. I saw her specifically in my vision. I saw her die and I did all in my power to stop it. But she still ended up dead, and her dead body, that dead stare, that I saw in my vision and in real life, has been haunting me ever since.
I started to feel another headache coming on. Did I forget to mention that my visions give me these never-ending throbbing headaches that only stop after I’d dealt with that particular vision?
I went to the bathroom and got myself some painkillers. They helped, but this new vision had been with me for close to two weeks now, and so had the accompanying headache.
I was getting sick of it.
“Give me a clue!” I yelled at the ceiling.
“Shut your trap, you crazy girl!” Came a reply from our next door neighbor. It was accompanied by the sound of his cane hitting the wall.
“Sorry, Mr. Pebbles,” I yelled right back.
“Yeah, yeah,” I heard him complain. But then he got quiet. I wondered if I’d get a vision if he was ever in any grave danger. Knowing the universe, probably not. The universe likes sending me on wild goose chases that end up costing me a lot of money.
Right on time, my cell started ringing. It was my employer. Psychics R Us. That’s right, I worked as a phone psychic. The ones you see advertised in those cheesy TV commercials that ask you if you want to find out who your soulmate is.
My gift usually didn’t work quite like that. But I did get impressions the longer I talked to a person and my accuracy was pretty high. My customers were usually amazed by how much I knew about them and their immediate futures. They always came back for more. To give myself credit, I was usually a lot more accurate compared to the cold readings you’d get from most phone psychics. If you’re not in the know, a cold reading is when the psychic uses the information you give them against you. And they also make up some vague stuff on the spot. When they hit on something that’s right, they just run along with it until you’re spilling your whole life story. It’s not usually until later on that you realize that you’ve been fooled. Some people never realize it and keep coming back for more.
I worked for several hours. I helped find a missing cat (it was hiding in the guest room closet), broke up a marriage (she wanted to know if he was sleeping around. I told her it was with her best friend), and told a lonely woman that the only way she was going to meet her Prince Charming was if she got out of the house once in a while (she was one of my regulars).
And now I needed a break.
There was a coffee shop a few blocks away from my apartment so I just decided to walk there. I needed the exercise anyway. The throbbing headache was starting to come back, and I was hoping some sugar and caffeine would keep it at bay. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds, but what can I say, I was famished. And all that talking on the phone had tired me out. My hand hurt from holding the damn phone and my throat was dry from reassuring people that the world wasn’t going to end anytime soon as far as I could see.
On the way there, not one, not two, but three cabbies asked me if I needed a ride. The universe was getting desperate. It did that sometimes when a vision was extra urgent. But it’s not like it had given me directions to where to go. Until then, universe, you can keep your yellow cabs to yourself. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
“The usual?” The owner of the place asked me as soon as she saw me.
“Yeah,” I said, “but throw in an extra chocolate croissant. It’s been that kind of day.”
“Coming right up.”
I took a seat by the window. My usual spot. I looked around like the dutiful little psychic I wasn’t, but the guy from my vision was nowhere in sight. If the unive
rse wanted me to save him so badly, it needed to send me more clues, that was for sure.
I drank my tea and ate my croissants. For about fifteen minutes there, I forgot the crazy world outside and inside my head. I just enjoyed my food. The croissants in this place were always fresh, even in the middle of the day. I didn’t know how Mindy, the owner, managed it, but she did. It explained why the little café was always so busy. Even still, my window seat usually remained vacant. Was this the universe’s way of asking for forgiveness for giving me all those visions and headaches? If it was, it wasn’t enough. But it was a good start. Giving me a vision of the winning lottery numbers? Now that would be priceless.
“Never gonna happen,” played through the café speakers. Lyrics to some song I’d never heard before.
“You give me an answer to that, but how about the guy in my vision that I’m supposed to save? Universe, you need to take a look at your priorities.”
“Talking to yourself again?” Mindy asked as she cleared up my table.
“I wish,” I said. “Have a good one, Mindy.”
“You too, Callie. Don’t work too hard.”
“If I didn’t have rent to pay, I wouldn’t,” I assured her.
Time to go back to my apartment and get back to work before Psychics R Us got the nerve to fire me.
On my way there, I saw a homeless-looking guy holding a sign that said “Go Home!”
“That’s exactly where I’m headed,” I told him.
“Go back to your real home,” he said.
Was this the universe talking or was he just some crazy guy on the street?
I decided for my own sanity that it was the latter. Because if I needed to go back to my middle of nowhere hometown in Ohio, the guy in my vision might as well be dead. Though if someone would give me a million dollars, I might reconsider. Hint, hint, universe. The ball is in your court.
Before I could escape to the safety of my apartment, I saw a few more signs on my way. Some were on trucks. Some on shop windows, still some others overheard from half-heard conversations that I wasn’t privy to.
Home Is Where the Heart Is, said some truck. It had a picture of a house with a white picket fence around it. Quite a strange thing to advertise in one of the biggest cities in the world.
“Hometown Sweets,” said one shop window I’d never noticed before. Did it just open? Did it just add that sign?
“I really have to go home now,” I overheard a woman saying into her cell phone, presumably another person on the other end.
Then she gave me a stern look when she noticed that I was staring at her, mouth agape.
“I get it, I get it,” I told the universe. “But if I get there and the guy from my vision isn’t there, I might just track him down and kill him myself.”
“Damn, that’s dark. Should I be worried?” Said Ben, Lily’s ex-fiancé.
“I’m getting another vision,” I said. “I guess the universe wants me to save another jerk.”
“You know it wasn’t like that,” he said, but I walked away before I could hear anything more.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I walked away. “Save it for your therapist.”
Ben was a lawyer in the law firm Lily worked at. Talk about awkward. Thankfully, since the place was so big, she barely saw the guy. But still, it probably wasn’t easy for her.
I got home, called my employer to tell them that I was taking a trip and that my hours would be all over the place. Stanley, my manager, wasn’t happy but he let it slide because he knew I was the best psychic on his payroll and that I made him the most dough.
I packed a small traveling bag. I wasn’t about to stay in my hometown any longer than necessary.
I texted Lily that I was following up on the vision and that I might be gone for a few days.
She told me to be careful and to give her frequent updates. She said she would drop everything if I needed her. She was a true friend.
A cab drove me to a train station.
The train ride was uneventful. We made a few stops, picking up more people and losing some along the way.
A man on the periphery.
“Is this seat taken?” He asked.
“Nope,” I replied without even looking at him.
I was beyond tired and cranky. I just stared out the window instead. All I could see was my face. Then I saw another face. A familiar face. Was I having another vision?
But it didn’t feel like one.
I turned around and saw that the guy sitting next to me was the guy from my vision. The guy whose life the universe wanted me to save.
Chapter 2
“You keep staring at me. It’s kind of freaking me out,” the man sitting next to me said.
“Sorry. You just look so familiar. I can’t quite place it.”
He definitely looked like the guy from my vision. Short brown hair. Handsome face. Probably in his late twenties or early thirties.
“Are you coming on to me? If so, this is a strange way of going about it.”
“You wish,” I said and turned my gaze. If the universe wanted to stop him from dying, it was going to have to find someone else to do it. I was not going to be treated this way.
“I was just joking,” he laughed. He extended his hand. “I’m Dax.”
I reluctantly shook his hand. “Callie,” I quickly said and turned my gaze again.
“Where are you headed, Callie?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I’m just curious.”
I couldn’t see the harm in saying. After all, I was supposed to go back to my hometown for some reason. Unless the universe just wanted me on the train to meet him. That would be awkward.
“You first,” I said, just in case his answer was different than mine.
“Little town in Ohio. I doubt you’ve heard of it. Picking Hill. At least I think that’s the name.”
“What a coincidence,” I said, trying to pretend that I was actually shocked by his answer. “That’s where I’m headed.”
“You’re not.”
“I am. It’s actually my hometown. I have family there.”
“What are the chances of that?”
“Not that astronomical,” I said. “I mean, this train is headed to Ohio, isn’t it?”
“I’m starting to think you might be a spy or something. How long have you been following me, Callie, if that even is your name?”
I rolled my eyes. “I think I have better things to do than follow some random dude across state lines. But I am curious, what do you do that you think a spy would even want to follow you?”
“The real question is, what do you do?”
“I asked first.”
He groaned. “It’s highly sensitive. I can’t talk about it.”
“That’s interesting. So is my job.”
He gave me a strange look. The joking manner was gone.
“I think I’ll take that seat over there instead.”
He took his bag, holding it like it contained the secrets of the universe. And he actually did take a seat a few rows from me. He looked back suspiciously in my direction, and then he turned to look out the window.
So he was treating me like a stalker? Sure, the only reason I was on this train was to save him, but if that’s how he was going to act, he should save himself.
I turned my gaze away from his as well and looked at my own reflection of a while. Then I got a text message from Lily.
“Met the guy from my vision on the train. He’s a jerk. We’re both headed to my hometown. Wish me luck,” I texted her back.
“Holler if you need backup.”
“Very funny,” I wrote back.
Pretty soon, the train stopped at our destination, or as close to it as it could.
We took a bus for the rest of the way. I rented a room at the inn because I was not in the mood for surprising my mother with a visit in the middle of the night.
Dax rented a room as well, glancing at me from time to time.
&nb
sp; I finally got fed up with it and spoke up. “What?”
“I just find it weird that you’re renting a room at the inn if you have family in town.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t want to drop in in the middle of the night.”
“Sure,” he said and headed for his own room.
“You’re a jerk, you know that?”
“I’ve been called worse,” he said and shut his door in my face.
I looked up at the ceiling. “Really, universe? Really?”
I went to my own room and got some much-needed sleep. All that caffeine and sugar had long evaporated by now. As soon as I hit the pillow, clothes on and all, I fell asleep.
I woke up in the morning. After a quick shower and a change of clothes, I was ready to face my family. But first I needed to get some breakfast because I was famished.
I ran into Dax in the dining room. Thankfully, he looked like he was finishing with his coffee.
“Hello, stalker, how was your night?”
I ignored him and got myself some croissants and coffee. Pretty soon, he was walking out. Where he was going, I had no idea. I wasn’t about to follow him around after he was so rude to me. If I happened to be in the right place at the right time, I might lift a finger to save him. Otherwise, he was on his own.
I called my mother to tell her that I was on my way. She seemed a bit too excited about the news but other than that, she sounded normal. That was good. I was only staying a few days max I told her. She said that “we’ll see,” whatever that means.
It was ten o’clock by the time I got a ride to the house I grew up in. It was just as I’d remembered. White picket fence out front. White, fading paint, though it looked a bit more vibrant since the last time I saw it.
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