Through His Eyes (Mind's Eye Book 1)

by Deborah Camp

  “Yes, but I didn’t have success with that.”

  “You were improving. The images were coming to you when you concentrated.”

  Trudy reached for her drink and downed it in a few large gulps. She felt like a woman caught in the glare of the desert sun and she was blazingly aware of Levi watching her. “I don’t . . . I’m not comfortable working in front of an audience.”

  “Audience?” Quintara repeated, clearly perplexed.

  “She means me, I suppose.” Levi’s smile was pure indulgence. “You don’t approve of how I conduct my business. You don’t like that I appear on television and that I’m a guest on radio programs.”

  “No, I simply—.”

  “Trudy, let’s not play games with each other. Not that kind of game, anyway.”

  Her gaze bounced to his and the intensity radiating from him told her that he could read her like a book, damn him.

  “What I meant was that I don’t work well with people staring at me and waiting for me to do something like I’m performing a magic act.” She hated that her voice held a slight tremor. “Why don’t you ask Gregory if he can’t wriggle the name of the killer out of the last victim since she knew him?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “That’s not how it works between us.”

  The mention of his spirit guide brought to mind the spirit she had seen earlier that day.

  “Is something wrong?” Quintara asked, leaning toward Trudy. “Your aura is disturbed.”

  “My aura?” Trudy shook her head. “I hate it when my aura rats me out.” She paused and the memory of Ethel strengthened in her mind, refusing to be dismissed. “I saw someone at the RV park earlier.”

  “Who, dear?”

  “A ghost.” Trudy glanced toward Levi. He was still watching her as if he found her fascinating. “The man who owns the RV park . . . well, it was his wife’s spirit. I think Ethel was trying to say something to me.”

  “What?” Quintara perched on the edge of the cushion, her brown eyes glowing with embers of excitement.

  “I couldn’t hear her. But her husband? He could smell Ethel’s perfume.”

  “Interesting,” Levi said, pursing his lips for a moment. “Could you sense what she was trying to convey to you?”

  “No. I was so weirded out by it that I was just trying not to scream in front of the old guy.”

  “I knew this would happen to you,” Quintara said, sitting back with a sigh of utter satisfaction. “I told you, didn’t I? Your powers are great, Trudy. You must simply learn to trust them.” She looked at Levi. “It’s what we were talking about earlier!”

  “You’ve been talking about me?” Trudy asked, instantly on guard.

  “I was telling Levi that you might be his match psychically if you keep coming to the Roundtable and practice what I’m preaching.”

  “Or if she simply dives in and gets completely wet instead of dipping her toe in the water over and over again,” Levi said.

  Trudy looked from him to Quintara, miffed to be talked about as if she had disappeared, but also interested. The room suddenly felt charged in the standoff that transpired between them. It was like watching a silent movie with only the performers’ faces to glean information from and understand what was going on. Levi frowned at Quintara and Quintara tipped her nose in the air in a show of haughtiness. Trudy looked from one to the other. What had been going on before she’d arrived? Obviously, they’d been quarreling or, at the very least, disagreeing about something that had to do with her.

  “The next time you see Ethel, don’t try to hear with your ears,” Levi said, dragging his gaze from Quintara to confront Trudy again. “Listen with your mind.”

  Trudy bristled at his high-handedness. She could never take his criticism well. Levi always seemed to be speaking to her from his ivory tower in the clouds. He had a way of barking orders that grated on her. She had a feeling that he was used to being obeyed.

  “Listen with your mind,” Quintara repeated. “Good advice.”

  “I might have to scare up a spirit guide to translate. Does Gregory have any pals who are out of work?”

  Levi accepted her quip with a quick scowl before he directed his attention to the patio doors that gave a view of the restless ocean. Trudy sensed restlessness in him, as well, and she figured he was reining in his patience. It was easy to see that he didn’t care much for her sassy mouth. Seconds ticked by with only the faint sounds of pounding waves and screaming gulls to fill the silence. Trudy glanced toward Quintara, who shook her head in a scolding gesture. Feeling justly chastised, Trudy rolled her eyes and drew in a breath to launch an apology when Levi spoke up.

  “Gregory says that Edith showed herself to you out of concern. Beyond that, he can’t help you.” Levi ran a hand down his face and sat straighter in the chair. “So, Trudy, let’s get something straight.” He pinned her with his steady, don’t-you-dare-look-away-from-me gaze. “If we’re going to enter into a partnership, we need to respect how we each work and what we believe. You think I’m a showman and that’s fine.” He shrugged. “I am and I make no apologies for it. I’ve learned to work with what I have, but that doesn’t cancel out my innate talents. Any more than your lack of faith in yourself and your penchant for sarcasm diminishes yours.”

  She blinked, feeling as if she were emerging from a shouting match, although no one had been shouting and only one person had been talking. So, why did she feel drained? She leaned away from him, needing distance, and looked to Quintara for help.

  “Now that the air has been cleared, we can get to the real work ahead of us,” Quintara said, smiling with satisfaction. “We have been given precious gifts that should be used for the betterment of the world.”

  Trudy shook her head, amused by Quintara’s grandiose pronouncement. Her bright spirit was a beacon to troubled, confused souls. Quintara had been a lighthouse, guiding Trudy through choppy, dark dreams to calmer seas. She had shown her how to steer her own course, to avoid obstacles instead of crashing into them to end up bruised and broken. Now if she could only show her how to navigate around Leviticus Wolfe!

  “Zelda,” Levi said, out of the blue.

  “Who’s that?” Quintara asked.

  “Gregory says that Zelda visited with the last victim at the bar earlier that evening. A customer, I think, but someone she liked. They laughed together. They were new friends.”

  “Zelda.” Trudy let the name rest in her mind and it did seem familiar, although also strangely distant. “We should go to that bar tonight. People there might know Zelda and we can talk to her. Do you think it will be open?”

  Levi nodded. “It’s not a crime scene. I imagine it will be business as usual. You’re old enough to drink, aren’t you?”

  Trudy scoffed at him. “Your false flattery is wasted on me, Wolfe. I’m twenty-seven and you damn well know it.”

  Quintara laughed. “We should all go tonight. It will give us a chance to work on our sense memories.”

  Trudy eyed her, wondering when she’d developed sense memory. As far as she knew, Quintara professed to read minds, auras, and palms and occasionally see spirits, but that was it. Sense memory was specialized, giving the medium the ability to experience trauma or other extreme emotions that happened in a place. She glanced at Levi. If anyone in the room had the gift of sense memory, it was him. He smiled indulgently at Quintara as if he also thought she had claimed something that was beyond her capabilities.

  “What sense memories?” Trudy asked, shrugging. “She wasn’t killed at that bar.”

  “That’s right,” Quintara allowed, her lips curving into a confident smile. “But her ending began there.”

  ###

  The bar was a bust. Trudy couldn’t feel anything except claustrophobic. She tried to catch Quintara’s eye, but the older woman was fascinated with something the cute bartender was saying. Levi was nowhere in sight. The last time she’d seen him he had been heading for the restrooms at the back of the bar.

  Feeling s
mothered in the crush of sun-kissed flesh and beer breath, Trudy elbowed her way outside. She was met with more people, some sitting on car hoods and others straddling motorcycles, laughing too loudly at bad pick-up lines. Stepping around a braying bottle blond and a couple of guys in short-shorts and tank tops, Trudy made her way across the parking lot. The soles of her sandals crunched loudly on the crushed sea shells.

  Near the street, she leaned against a light post and gathered clean air into her lungs. A breeze, redolent with salt and sea, flirted with the hem of her skirt and shimmied up her bare legs. A sinus headache bloomed behind her right eye and she didn’t know whether to blame the stuffy bar or the stuffier Levi Wolfe. The man could be so dark and domineering! Did he have a sense of humor? Did he ever laugh? Jeez! Yeah, they were chasing a serial killer, but Levi’s intensity made it all the more tedious. Still, she couldn’t imagine Quintara being so hot for him if he didn’t have a lighter side. Quintara loved a good laugh and she could be bawdy as hell.

  Cars whizzed by and one slowed to a crawl. A grinning college boy leaned out of the passenger window and motioned for her to come closer.

  “Hey, babe, wanna party?”

  Trudy turned her back on them. The car’s tires squealed on the pavement, almost drowning out the shouted, “Fuck you, bitch!”

  She flinched and shot them the finger. Suddenly, she felt deflated and weary. She had expected to glean something from the bar and its customers. She had hoped she would channel someone or even zero in on the mysterious Zelda. But all she had felt was sweaty and edgy.

  Crowded places were like that for her, even back when she was a kid. She had memories of her mind going fuzzy when she’d tagged along with her mother and sister to buy school clothes or Christmas gifts. Sensory overload. That’s what it was, she thought. Like being caught in a rainstorm of feelings, thoughts, and visions.

  “Hey, don’t be that way, sugar!” a man shouted from behind her. Trudy turned to see a tattooed guy stomping across the parking lot, the silver studs on his boots winking back at the street lights. He headed toward a group of people. “Sugar! Come back here.”

  Trudy turned to face the street again, tired of the bar scene.

  “Zelda!”

  She spun back around, her breath whistling down her throat. A pickup truck zipped past her – a dark blur, so close that Trudy stepped back just to be on the safe side. She looked for Zelda, but only the man stood the middle of the parking lot, looking utterly defeated as he stared toward the street. He snatched off his cowboy hat and threw it to the ground in a fit of juvenile rage.

  Trudy whirled back around, realizing that Zelda must have been in that speeding truck. “Crap!” She walked toward the man, who was fitting his hat back onto his floppy, blond hair. Cussing under his breath, he glared at Trudy when she stopped a few feet from him.

  “I know you, darlin’?” His drawl came straight out of Dallas.

  “No, but I heard you calling after Zelda.”

  “Yeah. So?” He had a ruddy complexion, but he wasn’t that old. In his 20s, probably.

  “How well do you know her?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  Trudy shrugged. “I came here to talk to her, but I just missed her. Do you know where she was headed?”

  “Hell if I know.” He grinned, showing off dingy teeth.

  “You think she’s going home?”

  “Do you know where she lives?” he asked, hopefully.

  “You don’t?” Trudy countered.

  The hope blinked out of his expression. “Hey, don’t jerk with me.”

  “What kind of truck was she driving?” She had to get some kind of useful information from him!

  “I don’t know and I don’t rightly care.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “Then give chase, sugar.” He extended a hand to the street. “She’s as free as the breeze. Good luck to ya.” Reeling about, stumbling, righting himself, walking sideways, stopping, stumbling, and then giving a lurch in the direction of the bar, he set off, ready for another round. This time without Zelda.

  The bar door opened and Levi filled the threshold. He held out a hand to steady the listing cowboy. The minute his fingers touched the man’s arm, his expression froze and his intense gaze locked like a laser onto the cowboy’s face. Trudy didn’t know if the cowboy could feel the magnetism of Levi’s focused attention, but she sure could.

  “You know Zelda,” Levi stated. “Where did you meet her? How long have you known her?”

  “Whoa, whoa up there! What’s with all the interest in Zelda?” The cowboy looked over his shoulder at Trudy. “Y’all ain’t her friends. Does she owe you money or somethin’?”

  “We need to talk to her. It’s a family emergency,” Levi said, glancing toward Trudy.

  “Zat right?” The cowboy didn’t look convinced. “She peeled outta here and she’s long gone.” He placed his shoulder against Levi’s to shove him aside, but couldn’t budge him. The cowboy grunted and tried again to forcibly move Levi and failed a second time.

  Arching a sardonic brow, Levi butted him with his shoulder, sending the man stumbling back a step or two so that he could cross over the threshold and allow the cowboy to enter the bar again. Trudy smiled to herself. Levi Wolfe was no pushover, she thought. Obviously, the Roundtable folks were right about the muscular physique under his clothes.

  Levi sent Trudy a speaking glare. “Did you get a look at her?”

  Trudy drew in a shaky breath, feeling like an underachiever. “No, but she was in a dark pickup truck.”

  “Which way did she turn?”

  “She hung a right.”

  Levi rested his hands on his hips, his long fingers splayed across the dark material of his trousers, and surveyed the parking lot. He shrugged and then reached out one hand to squeeze her shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. It’s been a long night. I’ll get Quintara.”

  Trudy trudged to the car and settled into the backseat. Within a few minutes, Levi and Quintara joined her. Levi steered the car out of the parking lot and turned right.

  “How disappointing,” Quintara said, twisting around to look at Trudy. “You didn’t see her profile or anything?”

  “No. It was a blur. She was driving like a bat outta hell.”

  “Let’s look for a dark pickup,” Quintara suggested.

  “Yes, there shouldn’t be more than a couple of hundred around here,” Levi noted.

  Trudy turned her face into the shadows so that Quintara wouldn’t see her grin at Levi’s droll observance. He did have a sense of humor, she thought. Dry and brusque, but intact!

  They toured the streets for half an hour seeing numerous dark pickups, but with no results. Trudy sat forward, touching her fingertips to Levi’s shoulder. “Let’s call it a night.”

  “Fine with me. We should work on a profile of the killer in the morning and then we’ll discuss our next step.”

  She met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “What did you sense when you touched that guy at the bar?”

  “Sense?” His dark brows knitted together. “Oh, I see. I just knew he’d been with a woman named Zelda.”

  “But no vision of her?”

  “No, just the name.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  She felt him still looking at her in the rearview mirror. Wanting to tell him to keep his eyes on the road, she quelled the urge. “It’s just that Quintara said that you went to Arthur Findley College in England to study this stuff. I figured you must be way ahead of the rest of us amateurs.”

  “Oh, I am way ahead of the people in the Roundtable.” He glanced at Quintara and they shared a smirk.

  He’s so arrogant, Trudy thought. In the flash of the street lights, she caught sight of Quintara’s rapt expression as she looked at Levi. Enthralled, Trudy thought. His most devoted fan. And she knows him. Quintara knows him well. Envy speared her and she caught her breath, stunned by the unexpected feeling. She
shook off the momentary lapse in good sense.

  “Do you have control over your – what do you call him – your guide?” Trudy asked, hearing the skepticism in her tone and feeling instantly contrite. She shouldn’t be a Doubting Thomasina because she knew how hurtful that could be, but it was so difficult to take some of the hocus pocus seriously. She kept thinking of Billy and Jerrod, the guys in the Roundtable and all their eye-rolling and chanting as they summoned their guides. She glanced at the rearview mirror. Levi’s expressive eyes glittered darkly. She couldn’t see his mouth, but she knew he was frowning.

  “I don’t control Gregory, no. Why does it bother you so much that I occasionally consult a spirit guide?”

  She looked away from him, hiding her face in the shadows again. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell us, dear,” Quintara insisted. “You do know why you think guides are hogwash, so please enlighten us.”

  Trudy worried her lower lip between her teeth and stalled for a few seconds, wishing Quintara would quit putting her on the spot. “I don’t understand the concept, that’s all. From what I’ve seen in the Roundtable . . .” She shrugged, not wanting to besmirch Quintara’s other fledglings.

  Levi drove into the parking lot and whipped into a space next to Trudy’s car. He killed the motor. “Come inside for a little bit, Trudy.” His voice was tight, almost biting.

  Trudy was out of the car in the span of a few seconds. She slammed the car door and turned to make a getaway. “No, thanks. I’ll call it a night and—.” His firm grasp on her elbow cut off the sentence.

  “Come inside,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I won’t keep you long.” Levi didn’t let go of her. He guided her along the sidewalk to the suite he shared with Quintara.

  Stunned to be manhandled by him, Trudy glanced at Quintara and widened her eyes in an appeal. Quintara pursed her lips to keep from grinning and shook her head at Trudy.

  Levi fished his key card from his back trouser pocket and unlocked the door. Stepping back, he waited for Quintara and Trudy to go in first. Trudy wrenched her elbow free of his slackened grasp and, as she passed by him, her arm brushed against his chest. He was solid. He must work out, she thought. And, lord, he smelled delicious! What aftershave was that?