Through His Eyes (Mind's Eye Book 1)

by Deborah Camp

She puckered her brow, deep in thought. “I think she’s with a group of people, but I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s go find her.” He stood up, pulling her to her feet. “We’re only two blocks away.” Bending his knees, he ducked down to capture her gaze. Her cat eyes were swimming with unshed tears. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and wiped the moisture from her lashes. “I’m fine now. My head was foggy there for a minute, but I feel okay, I think.”

  Slipping an arm around her shoulders, he set off with her toward the crowds at Key West’s most famous square where a woman had been marked for death by a madman.

  Chapter Thirteen

  For more than an hour they searched frantically, crisscrossing the square, looking into faces, and not finding her. Trudy couldn’t believe how many women were wearing cutoffs! And not one of them was the blond she was desperate to locate. Occasionally, she had caught sight of Levi. Once, he had stopped and was signing the back of some woman’s t-shirt! Another time, he was being followed by three giggling girls.

  He’s a mini celebrity! The realization was sobering. She had never considered that he would be recognized and approached so often by strangers and adoring fans. Did he like that kind of attention? she wondered. Or was it a nuisance to him? It certainly was off-putting to her when they were trying to find a killer’s next victim!

  Stopping in front of a red-and-white striped artist’s tent, which she and Levi had designated as their “meet up” spot, she moved from foot to foot in exasperation as she waited for him to join her. Was he signing autographs for his fans or helping her look for the blond? She watched the mingling throng in front of her, hoping . . . hoping . . . to catch sight of a white-blond ponytail.

  “He’s dreamboat handsome, isn’t he?”

  Trudy started slightly, realizing that the brunette standing next to her was addressing her, although she was staring at someone straight ahead of them. Following her gaze, Trudy spotted Levi. He was chatting with several wide-eyed women.

  “You’re talking about Levi Wolfe?” she asked, and the woman nodded, still smiling.

  “He’s very kind and considerate, too,” the woman added as she glanced quickly at Trudy before swinging her attention back to Levi again.

  Trudy gave the woman the once-over. Wait . . . her attention fastened on the t-shirt she wore – the t-shirt Trudy had seen Levi signing the back of a little while ago. “He autographed your shirt,” she said. “So, you’re a fan of his?”

  “A fan?” The woman laughed and shook her head. “Oh, honey, I’m so much more than a fan!” Still laughing, she sauntered away. Trudy watched until she lost sight of her in the crowd. The exchange left her feeling oddly unnerved, but then everything about this afternoon unnerved her.

  Excitement grew among the celebrants as the sun began to dip into the ocean. It was almost palatable, shimmering in the slanting sunlight. Musicians blasted out tunes as all sorts of other performers from mimes to chimps wearing tuxedos entertained, some for money and some just to be part of the action. A spattering of applause lifted in the air as the huge orange orb dipped lower and lower. Instead of feeling the magic of it all, Trudy’s insides twisted with annoyance. Why couldn’t she find the woman in cut-offs? It should be easy. They had found the one before and saved her life.

  As the people around her “ooohed” and “ahhhed” and applauded the sunset’s spectacle, Trudy shook her head. Everyone was going about their lives, oblivious to the fact that a monster was pacing among them, searching, sniffing, prowling, anxious to spill more blood, to extinguish one more life as if it were his right, his singular purpose on this earth.

  “No luck?”

  She jumped and then drew in a short breath when she realized that Levi was standing behind her. “God! Don’t scare me like that!”

  “Sorry. You’re jumpy.”

  “And why not? He’s around here somewhere!”

  “Okay, okay.” He ran his hands up and down her arms.

  “I’ve seen no fewer than twenty-five blond women in cutoffs and none of them was the one I wanted to see. Maybe she didn’t hang around for the big show, but why come here if you’re not going to watch the sunset?” Trudy scanned the crowd again. “She must be around here somewhere!”

  He rested his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back against him. “She might have met friends here and then scooted off to get a good table for dinner, beating the sunset crowds.”

  She sighed, resigned to yet another failure. “This is pointless. We should head back to the car. We need to let Tom know.” She meant to push away from him, but he enfolded her in his arms, crossing them above her breasts, his hands closing warmly around her shoulders. His lips touched her hair.

  “Wait a few minutes. We’re here. Let’s enjoy it.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to.” Frustration coiled inside of her.

  “It’s magic time in Key West.”

  “Not for me.” She closed her eyes and tried to relax, tried to slough off the casing of failure and helplessness.

  His breath fanned the side of her neck. “I’m in awe of you.”

  She stopped breathing, his statement making everything inside of her soften and glow for a few quiet moments. Suddenly, the world seemed peaceful and safe again.

  “There goes the sun, Trudy,” he whispered in that sexy, throaty voice of his. “Slipping slowly into the sea. You can almost hear it hiss and sizzle.”

  Why did that sound so sexual? He could make almost anything sound that way.

  She opened her eyes to the glorious vision in front of her. The sky glowed in amazing bands of color and the ocean was a bed of liquid gold. From the corner of her eye, she saw a mime approaching them and she smothered a giggle when Levi rasped, “Oh, shit. A fucking mime.”

  The black-and-white faced performer was clad in a black suit, a white shirt, and a big, orange bow tie. His white-gloved hands covered his heart and he mimed a big, pumping organ and batted his lashes at them. Then he used one index fingers to paint a valentine in the air in front of him and glanced up in a swoon where the first bold stars were peeking out of the firmament.

  “Can he be any cornier?” Levi groused.

  Trudy sighed, thinking it was kind of cute. The mime swung around, placing his arms about himself, and pretended to be a couple embracing and fondling. Levi used those moments to melt with Trudy back into the crowd and away from the mime.

  Resigned to the fact that they had failed to find the next victim, Trudy slipped an arm around his waist as he tucked her against his side. Natural. Like they walked this way together all the time, Trudy thought even as she was blazingly aware that it was the first time for them.

  A sign ahead of her caught her attention. “Look, Levi. A palm reader.”

  “I’ve already read your palm,” he said in a low and throbbing voice, his arm tightening around her shoulders and pressing her closer to him.

  Oh. Right. Lots of sex in her future. She shook her head, her blue mood surfacing again. What good were visions if she couldn’t keep someone safe?

  She felt Levi’s steps falter and then he stopped. She glanced at him. He was staring at a small cluster of tents ahead of them.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I think that’s someone I know. Yeah, that’s him. Come on. I’ll introduce you.” He strode confidently with her toward the open-sided tent that was, more or less, a canopy and smiled when the man looked up. “Hello, Glenn.”

  “Levi Wolfe!” The white-haired, gray-bearded man half-rose from his chair and extended his hand, pumping Levi’s with unconcealed delight and gusto. “The last time I saw you was four years ago in New Orleans on that ghost tour! Of course, I see you all the time on television.”

  “I’m so glad I ran into you, Glenn. Please, allow me to introduce a friend of mine and a fellow psychic Miss Trudy Tucker. Trudy, this is Glenn O’Connell. Glenn is an excellent aura reader, among other talents.”

  “Hello.” Trudy shook his hand a
nd returned his warm smile. She glanced at Levi, finding his politeness touching. For a boy who was obviously rebellious enough to grow up in reform schools, Levi had acquired Ivy League manners.

  “What are you doing in Key West, Glenn?” Levi asked.

  “I live here now. I decided to sell my home in Eureka Springs. The spirits in that house were driving me nuts. It was getting really bad, Levi. One of them played the piano off and on almost every night.”

  Trudy looked at Levi to catch his reaction to talk of piano playing spirits. He seemed mildly interested. Suddenly, she recalled her own spiritual encounter. Ethel! She had seen Ethel right before the killer’s thoughts had invaded her. And Ethel had been very, very upset. She hadn’t been able to hear her, but Trudy was certain that if she could have she would have heard Ethel screaming. But about what? Ethel had disappeared and the murder’s thoughts and sights had taken over.

  “Trudy? Earth to Trudy. Come in, please.”

  She blinked away her thoughts and smiled reassuringly at Levi. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

  “Her aura is incredibly strong . . . distinct and deeply colored,” Glenn said. “But you are troubled, aren’t you, my dear? There are disturbances in your aura that have no business there. You’re doing fine, Trudy. Just fine. Keep on this path.”

  Trudy kept silent, not wanting to dwell too much on his revelations. Keep on this path? This rocky path she was treading with Levi?

  “You are wrestling with a question,” Glenn said, zeroing in on Levi, who looked tense, wary, and decidedly uncomfortable. “An important question about trust.” Glenn smiled and glanced at Trudy. “The answer, my friend, is yes. With your life and with everything you are and have been. Yes.”

  Levi shot a glance at Trudy and then back at Glenn, giving a brief shrug. Intrigued, Trudy ached to ask for more, but she knew this message was not hers. Still, it bothered her that he hadn’t decided to trust her yet.

  Glenn sat behind a table that was strewn with pamphlets about ghosts, palm readings, and the paranormal. A tent sign read: Aura Readings $25. A slight scowl blanketed his freckled face as he stared up at Trudy, his gaze moving slowly above the top of her head, down her shoulder, back up, and down the other shoulder. She had seen mediums do this before. He was deciphering her aura. “You have a spirit following you.”

  Trudy gasped. “Yes! Ethel. She’s a ghost I see now and then. But only since I arrived here in the Keys.”

  Looking from Trudy to Levi, Glenn’s eyes softened as he swung his gaze back to Trudy. “She’s not a ghost, young one. As I understand it, there’s a difference between a spirit and a ghost. A spirit is here of its own volition. It’s here to impart something or to guide someone. A ghost is a soul that’s still anchored to this realm because it can’t or won’t find its way to the next dimension. Yours is a spirit.”

  “You can see her?”

  “No. I sense her in your aura.”

  “Can you hear her? Because I can’t.”

  Glenn’s smile was patiently indulgent. “I can’t hear her because she’s not speaking to me. She’s speaking to you.”

  “But what does she want?" Trudy spread out her hands in an abject appeal to the man, who seemed to know about mute spirits who popped up at inopportune times.

  “That’s for you to discover.”

  “But I can’t hear her,” Trudy repeated, desperation coloring her voice.

  “You will when you fully accept her. You’ve been denying her existence and her purpose in your life and that’s why you can’t hear her. When you finally acknowledge her purpose, her connection to you, then you’ll hear her voice. Levi was ready to accept Gregory when Gregory appeared to him, so it was an instant connection and communication. You’ve been blocking your spirit guide, making it difficult for her to reach you.”

  “Spirit guide?” Trudy took a step back before she could stop herself. Her gaze flew to Levi and she glared at him when he smirked. “No. Ethel isn’t my spirit guide. She’s a . . . she’s attached to the RV park. Her husband is there.”

  “She’s not there for him. She’s there for you.” Glenn shrugged. “But who am I? You can believe me or not.”

  “No, I’m not . . . I don’t mean . . .” Trudy gathered in a deep breath. “I believe you’re very gifted.”

  “Like every human, I can err.” Glenn shrugged again and held out his hand to Levi, who clasped it and then extended some folded bills to Glenn. “Thank you for the reading.”

  Glenn held up his free hand. “You don’t have to pay me.”

  “I want to,” Levi said, his tone irrefutable. “I insist.”

  Shrugging, the man took the money. “Thank you. Rid yourself of some of that pain you hold so close to your heart. You believe that it protects you. But, my friend, it’s poison, not a magic elixir. It keeps you from what you need most in your life – love.”

  The stark uncertainty and sadness evident in Levi’s expression squeezed Trudy’s heart. In the space of a breath, he inched up his chin and recovered his mask of cool composure.

  “Take care, Glenn. Be seeing you.”

  “Fare-thee-well, Levi. Nice to meet you, Trudy. You two are after the killer, yes?”

  Levi nodded, reaching out to capture Trudy’s hand.

  “Tread carefully,” Glenn said. “I’ll take evil ghosts over evil mortals every time.”

  They moved off slowly, Levi’s fingers wrapped around hers, his thumb brushing across her wrist every so often. Still rattled by Glenn’s assertion that Ethel was her spirit guide, Trudy drew in a deep breath. A spirit guide? No way. It just didn’t compute.

  “Let’s go to the police station and brief Sinclair on the latest target,” Levi said. “Then we’ll go back to the RV park to regroup and compare notes.”

  She nodded.

  “And you should try to connect with your spirit guide.”

  “She’s not –!” She bit off the rest when she saw the teasing light in his eyes and the slow curving of his lips. “You love it, don’t you?”

  “I love the irony of it, yes.”

  “I’m not convinced,” she said, knowing that she was being stubborn.

  He chuckled. “You won’t be able to hear her until you believe in her,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  “Oh, hush.”

  They walked the rest of the way to the Jaguar like that. Together, but separated by their thoughts.

  ###

  Arriving at the RV park well after nine o’clock, Trudy wasted no time in letting Mouse out to do her business. The little dog was full to bursting.

  “I’m a horrible mother, aren’t I?” Trudy asked her, feeling inanely guilty for staying away so long. “I didn’t plan on being gone all day and most of the evening. But what a good dog you are, Mouse. I don’t deserve you.”

  She picked up the Chihuahua and smiled when the little gray creature gave her kisses after kisses. Ah, unconditional love! If only it could be bottled and clearly labeled so that no one would mistake it for that other kind – the kind that broke hearts and spirits.

  Inside her RV, she scooped some peanut butter into a Kong toy for Mouse and let her go at it. She stood for a few minutes, watching the dog wrestle the toy and try to lick every bit of the peanut butter from its holes and crevices. That would keep her happily busy for at least an hour.

  Feeling hot and sticky and afraid she would be too tired later for a shower, Trudy dashed into the bathroom, stripping off her clothes as she went, and turned on the faucets. Levi had insisted that she meet him in his cabin in an hour to review their notes and impressions. They’d already related everything to Tom Sinclair, but Levi wanted to go over it all again.

  Whatever. She rolled her eyes as she stepped under the stinging shower spray. She was too weary to argue with him. Just do it and get it over with, she told herself. Then she would come back to the RV, climb into bed, and pass out.

  Standing under the shower, scenes from the past few hours flitted behind her eyelids. She
was still feeling dejected because they hadn’t located the woman. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the blond only had hours to live. Maybe a day, tops. Her thoughts moved, as they so often did lately, to Levi. He’d looked so vulnerable and wretched when Glenn had told him to let go of his pain so that he could experience love. But Glenn was right. As long as Levi refused to trust and open up, he was effectively making it impossible for real, everlasting love to enter his life.

  After the shower, she pulled on a pair of tan capris and a white t-shirt and told herself she would make this quick so that she could get some shut-eye. As she was crossing the grounds toward the cabins, she noticed that the elderly couple in the mini was gone. A big Airstream and a 21-foot trailer and red pickup truck were the new additions in the park. There never seemed to be more than four or five RVs there at one time. Mike Yardley must be barely limping by financially, she thought, feeling pity for him. Maybe Jay was chipping in what he could to help out his old man.

  She tapped on the cabin door and it swung open. Levi waved her in, turning and walking toward the dining table and mismatched chairs.

  He leaned toward her and smiled. “You smell good.”

  She glanced at him. He’d showered, too, and shaved. His hair was slightly damp. He’d pulled on a pair of dark blue jeans and a black, V-necked t-shirt. His feet were bare.

  “I meant to turn on the TV to see if they were running the sketch of the blond woman on the news tonight,” Trudy said. At the police station, she had spent an hour with the sketch artist to create a mockup of the next victim.

  “They won’t. Not tonight.”

  “You don’t think they could make the evening news?”

  “They could, but they won’t. I imagine they will give the sketch to their patrol officers tonight and tomorrow.”

  “Why do they wait to show the sketches to the public? Someone surely would recognize this latest woman and the police could remove her from harm’s way – like the last one.”

  Standing in front of the wall and studying the materials spread across it, he turned slightly to look at her. A wry smile curved his mouth. “You’re assuming the police believe us about the blond.”