by Andrea Drew
Gypsy Curse
Love can be Lethal
by
Andrea Drew
www.andreadrewauthor.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.
Copyright © 2015 Andrea Drew. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.
Version 2015.12.25
Prologue
Crooks and public officials lie.
During the past two years, I’d been lied to, left for dead, stalked, abused, spat at, deserted and scorned.
Not bad for a business writer who tends toward communicating with the dead and passing messages with a select number of the living, without saying a single word.
When I’d learned my signature move, tracking my second person down telepathically, excitement charged through my veins. Until I realized that the creepy stalker planned on breaking into my place, that is. At that point I’d wondered if he’d shoot me. I’d heard somehow, somewhere that being shot didn’t hurt, which didn’t sound right.
Whoever told me that it didn’t hurt had lied through their teeth. It hurt like hell.
***
1
I swiped the glowing screen. I knew the caller, pretty damn well in fact. We’d been living together for almost three years.
“Gypsy?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you, lovely?”
I tried to control my breathing, the recent frenzy of tidying and cleaning having left me out of breath, but of course the rush of endorphins meant I felt pretty damn fine, and wished Detective Constable Connor Reardon lay in our comfortable bed rather than calling from the station, probably to tell me he’d be home late. Again.
“Yeah, okay. You won’t believe it, but you can actually see the floor of our townhouse.”
He chuckled quietly. “Wow. That’s good. Good for the morale and all that.”
“Yeah, I hate it, but I’ve got into the cleaning zone for once.” I shuffled my feet. “Let me guess, you’re running late.”
“I’m sorry, beautiful, but not too late, I promise.” We said our goodbyes and I hung up. The fact that Connor Reardon still considered me beautiful remained a mystery, unless you classed a skinny brunette as beautiful.
I gazed around my cramped apartment. The usual pile of papers in the lounge room had actually been sorted after procrastinating, my greatest skill. I’d vacuumed and plumped up the cushions on my purple couch.
Squeezed between two other units built more than fifty years ago, it had been built back in the times when people didn’t need oodles of space for modern appliances. My cramped study was just behind the bathroom, and my lounge room wasn’t big enough to swing a cat in. As it was, my velour couch, so kitsch it worked, along with glass coffee table and TV just made it, with only enough room to walk around the table and peer into the tiny kitchen, in what could only be described as open plan living, if you could call it even that.
My bones ached, and I couldn’t bring myself to push my body anymore. I had nothing left. Standing back to survey the new state of our flat, I managed a tired smile, buggered yet satisfied with my efforts. Of course, surprise visitors would never show up when it looked like this. Only when my slovenliness had hit full flight would I hear a random knock at the door.
I slotted the mop and scrubber sponges back into their hiding place.
Food shopping was the last thing on my mind. However, the thought of my tanned, blonde-haired detective arriving home with exhausted eyes, hair flopping over his forehead as he threw himself onto the couch without a thing in the bare cupboard, motivated me to get some supplies so he could eat at whatever ridiculous hour he got home.
I grabbed my car keys with a sigh and drove the four minutes to the local supermarket on auto pilot. At least tonight I would sleep well, which would be a welcome break from the usual surfing through shopping channels at two am.
I parked my car in the supermarket lot, pulling on the handbrake with a sigh. I’d rather be buying shoes or handbags, but unfortunately, there was nothing in the damn house.
Still exhausted after the cleaning, I grabbed the essentials half-heartedly and headed for the self-serve registers. As I scanned my items and finished paying, I hurriedly grabbed the bags and made for the exit. On the way out, I bumped into a young man. Turning to him, I apologized briefly before making to leave.
A vision overcame me. “You’re pregnant,” I blurted.
The man glared at me, his mouth opening and eyebrows furrowing.
“What the hell? You’re crazy, lady. I had a liver transplant ten months ago; no way in hell me or my girlfriend are having a baby.” He stormed away at a rapid pace, peering over his shoulder before quickening his pace.
I headed out of the store and sat down on a wooden bench. What the hell was wrong with me? Of course he wasn’t pregnant.
Help me, Gypsy. Find the bad men that hurt me, said a spirit child.
−Who are you?
−My name is Li. I need you to find the men that took me. They gave me to Mama Kelly, they told her I would go to a new family, but I didn’t. They took me to the clinic and put me to sleep, with a needle in my arm. Then they stole my insides.
−Stole your insides? What do you mean?
The prickle up my back and along my arms told me I already knew what she meant. A child abduction ring with a difference: They were harvesting and selling organs. The reason I’d thought the man I’d just bumped into was pregnant was because he carried Li’s liver.
I reached out for the spirit child for more information, but her signal was weak. She was almost gone.
How the hell was I going to track this group down? She’d managed to show me a few things, but I needed more.
I’m sure most people would love to occasionally be telepathic or a psychic medium. My boyfriend Connor viewed his sentinel gifts as a curse, while I erred more on the side of it being a gift. My abilities had saved my life many moons ago.
True, my telepathy extended only to my niece Renee and me. Through necessity, over the last year I’d discovered a new move: a signature trace. In one particular case, I’d tracked down a sick stalker using my memories. I hadn’t been able to replicate it since then, but at the time, lives were at stake. I hoped I’d never have to track someone down that way again.
For this reason, I couldn’t leave things alone.
I tuned in to try and find a location, a starting point, but pushing through the static wasn’t easy. I knew a woman was at the center, the woman caring for these children. Her unhappiness draped itself over me like a greasy blanket. She’d had a rough life; I was certain of that much.
A picture enveloped me. I saw a tram and heard the distinctive warning bell. I saw a restaurant, Sofia’s. Sofia’s was significant, because I’d met Connor at the Carlton restaurant. This, however, looked like a different one, based in Camberwell. Looking up, I saw a church spire, its grey walls reaching high over nearby streets.
Satisfied, I left it at that for the moment. The younger girl’s distress lingered, palpable and heavy. She had no idea I could track her, the signal weak. The older woman seemed to th
ink she managed a child care agency, a crèche, but the truth remained much more malevolent. She had no idea she cared for children who had been abducted.
I shivered. The evil intentions crawled across my skin. The creep hid behind the veneer of respectability, a family law magistrate well respected by his peers. I planned on putting an end to all of that. I’d track them down at any cost.
I couldn’t wait to tell Connor. Having a Melbourne detective for a boyfriend had its uses.
***
Kelly enjoyed using her real name again. Each time a stranger addressed her by the name scrawled across her birth certificate; it took a concerted effort on her part not to grin stupidly at them. After nearly seven years as saucy Madison, the relief of settling into suburban life washed over her. The ability to breathe easily and lean back into a daily routine remained a source of pride and comfort.
It had taken a couple of months, but now she was there. Kelly hadn’t been aware of the humming and singing as she mopped the floors and picked up the children’s toys, but Lisa and Mitchell had smiled up at her, asking the name of the song. They’d then demanded “Incey Wincey Spider” followed by “The Wheels on the Bus.” The sight of their upturned faces, rosy pink cheeks and soft, unblemished skin warmed her with tenderness.
She’d heard mothers complaining at the shops, but to her ears, constant ferrying of children from one activity to another, lazy husbands, and a failure to put the rubbish bins out along with a general refusal to help with bath and bed times sounded like petty gripes to her ears. Kelly knew that each day she enjoyed as a free woman, unmarred by the pressure of extracting the maximum amount of cash from punters in minimum time, was a gift to be cherished.
Thankfully, she’d been one of the lucky ones, extracting herself from the business without track marks on her arms or bruises across her face. She’d endured only eighteen months before she scored this gig. Jimmy had forced himself on her a couple of times, but after she’d practiced pushing the dirty, heavy memory to the back of her mind, she rarely thought about it.
The day Jimmy had told her of his plans was harder to shift. He’d asked her to come out to the front porch with her for a smoke, and she didn’t smoke. Something was up.
“Good news for you, love.” Jimmy’s bling, his tatts, barely registered.
Her attention fixed on the ash of his cigarette. “Oh yeah?” She deliberately kept her tone quiet, understated, and cool.
“Yeah.” His grin deepened. “Mate of mine, Jack, has a contact. Big time player. Wants a nanny, a child care center started.”
“Child care?” Kelly pressed her lips together and pushed back a bitter laugh. How the hell was that going to work, and why? She smelt a rat, but hell, if it got her away from Jimmy and the customers grunting on top of her…
“Yeah, I’ll introduce you. I figured you could do with a holiday.” Jimmy bared his teeth to reveal the gold crown, his sour brown face creasing around flat shark eyes. The stale cigarette smoke assaulted her senses as he moved closer, leering at her. “This is your chance; don’t fuck it up. It’s not forever; I own your pretty little ass. You’re mine, and always will be.”
She stared at the cigarette butt. Jimmy ground it in the concrete and stomped off without a backward glance.
***
The pictures had shocked Connor. At first, he’d written them off as an aberration. He was tired, working long hours, and of course his mind wandered. It was to be expected. Any person suffered from strange, random thoughts when tired. The long days left him drained, but the frequency of the visions increased. When he arrived home and collapsed into bed, many times fully clothed, the visions engulfed him. He was no longer in bed, but in a strange, dank place, the room unrecognizable.
During the last vision, he saw a man huffing and grunting above him, screaming and sweating as he climaxed. The last time it had happened, he’d propelled himself out of bed, pushing away from the source.
A man? What the hell was going on?
The person lying on the bed was a woman, and not him. So when and how did he start getting visions and messages from other living people? This was Gypsy’s domain, not his, and he didn’t like it one damn bit.
As a sentinel, his job was to guard or protect other psychics, not be a receipt point for telepathic communication. Gypsy did stuff like that, and although her abilities were expanding, it was rare that pictures of this nature reached him.
This was different. The woman needed his help. As a detective and voice for victims, he felt torn between the overwhelming desire to help this unknown woman and his reluctant acceptance of his sentinel abilities.
The urge to call Gypsy, to run to her and demand she tell him what on earth was going on, washed over him. Letting go of the shower rail, he turned the tap on and stepped in.
He didn’t want to wake Gypsy, but life had changed. Something lurked behind the mental picture, something, or rather someone, slithering out of reach. Lives were at stake, and more than one. The squirming nest of vipers uncoiled itself, coming straight for him. Whoever or whatever this was, he knew he’d dig until he knew who lurked behind the veil.
He wouldn’t have to ask Gypsy to help; she’d be there, riding out beside him in a heartbeat. The game had changed.
***
I sat up straight in bed, rubbing my eyes. Connor had jiggled my right shoulder at four a.m. It must be serious; after over two years together, he knew better than to wake me up early and this wasn’t any kind of daylight. I suffered from insomnia, so sleep was precious, a scarce commodity.
Whatever it was, this was serious. Who had died?
“Wake up, Gypsy, wake up.” Although Connor did his best to keep his voice down, it sounded like a foghorn.
“What the hell?” I said, flinging back the covers.
I pushed myself up off the bed and opened my eyes to slits, the dim light from the open door burning them. Connor stood just inside the bedroom, wearing a dark blue robe, his blonde hair tousled and damp. The smell of shampoo and soap wafted over.
“I got a vision, if that’s what you call it. From a woman.”
“Huh?” The idea of a woman in Connor’s vision didn’t exactly float my boat. What kind of vision? A naked vision? Things slid downhill pretty rapidly.
“Relax, honey, it’s not like that. It was a cry for help, I think. I wonder if she’s being held against her will.”
Oh my god, not this one again, please.
Two years ago, at the beginning of our journey together, an administrator had been kidnapped by Connor’s nephew, Aaron, who was currently serving time for killing a cop. So the idea of a woman being held against her will didn’t exactly thrill me. I stared at the goosebumps prickling up on my forearms, as did Connor.
He got it. “No, it can never be as bad as the Aaron saga, I promise.”
I brushed past him, heading for the bathroom. “Don’t make promises you know you can’t keep,” I growled.
As I washed my hands and then headed back to the bedroom, I wondered what the hell had prompted Connor to wake me in the middle of the night. A vision. A first for him.
Today, I’d decided, would be the day I’d share my news with him. Yet the jolt of awakening all too early meant the time for sharing good news with my man would definitely not be today. Definitely.
“Tell me about this vision then,” I said, hurling myself back on the bed.
“A woman, dark hair, maybe in her thirties, with a man on top of her. Against her will.”
I rubbed my palms across my face. “What, like a rape, you mean?”
“Yes. Something else disturbed me though. Firstly, that I’m getting visions. Why now? Why ever? Visions are usually your thing.”
I pushed myself up on the bed. “Not all it’s cracked up to be, is it? Usually, a vision comes to me for a reason. Someone desperately needs your help, and I reckon it’s something to do with yesterday’s shopping trip.”
Connors face flushed and he sat beside me. He rubbed his forehe
ad. “Shopping trip? What?”
I sighed. “At the checkout, I bumped into a man. For some reason, I thought he was pregnant. He thought I was a complete wacko. He wasn’t pregnant, of course. A spirit child appeared to me. She wanted me to know she’d been abducted and killed, and her organs sold to him. He had a liver transplant last year. She helped me find where the children are held. It’s in Camberwell.”
Connor twisted around to look at me directly. “What? Are you sure?”
I kept my voice low and quiet. “I’m always sure, Connor.”
“How does a random trip to the supermarket relate to my vision?”
“A woman, dark hair, thirties; this is her, the same woman. Why would she be abducting kids and keeping them? Where did she come from?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” Connor pushed himself up from the bed.
“It’s five a.m., Connor. There’s more. I tracked her signature. She’s holed up in Camberwell with the kid, I saw it. Near the corner of Canterbury Road and Burke Road. I’m going over there to go hunting for her place. It shouldn’t be hard.”
Connor raised a palm. “Before you do anything, let’s get some facts, find out who she is.”
I raised my head, the skin on my neck stretching. “How exactly do we do that without a name or address?”
Connor's lips pressed together and he frowned. “I have to go in to work today. But there’s no way in hell you’re going there alone. We’ll go together.”
Resigned to starting my day early, I pushed myself up off the bed and stood a few inches from Connor. “Not a good idea. You’re a cop and you’re a man.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I’m relying on the sisterhood here. If I find her, she might talk to another woman. Having you beside me will freak her out.”
“I won’t flash my badge.”
“That won’t matter. Can we try it my way first? If that doesn’t work, I’ll call you in. But for now, I go alone.”
Connor crossed his arms. “I’m not keen on that idea.”