A Grave Prediction (Psychic Eye Mystery) (18 page)

BOOK: A Grave Prediction (Psychic Eye Mystery)
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“Is that another hunch?” she asked.

“For sure,” I said, even though it wasn’t quite true.

After hanging up with Kelsey, I moseyed on over to the hotel pool and got a good dose of vitamin D. It was a little chilly out, but the sun was shining and I was in good spirits. Leaning back in the lounge chair, I closed my eyes and sighed happily.

The next thing I knew, someone had me by the shoulder and was gently shaking me awake.
“Who? What? Where?”
I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright with hands ready to karate chop anything threatening.

“Whoa, Sundance,” Candice said, stepping out of harm’s way. “Better put those away before you poke an eye out.”

I holstered the karate hands and shook my head a little to get the sleepiness out. “What’s going on?”

Candice held up my phone. “I came looking for you and saw you out here. Your phone was ringing when I walked up, so I checked the display and answered it. Kelsey called. She needs to see us. Right away.”

I shook my head again, trying to catch up to everything Candice had just said. “Why?” I finally managed.

“They found something mixed in with the ancient remains you helped dig up. It’s putting a whole new spin on things.”

I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Did she say what it was?”

“No. She wouldn’t tell me over the phone, and that can only mean that it’s something bad.”

“Shit,” I said. “I was afraid of that.”

Chapter Thirteen

•   •   •

W
e met Kelsey at a Starbucks midway between our hotel and the bureau offices. She was already there when we arrived, and the look on her face was . . . tense.

“What’s happened?” I asked when we sat down, not even wasting time on the hellos.

“Perez and Robinson got a call an hour and a half ago,” she began. “The archaeologist, Dr. Acuna, who was hired by the Tongva tribe to inspect and catalog the ancient remains discovered a few extra pieces.”

“Extra
pieces
?” Candice repeated.

“Yes. Extra bones. A femur, a piece of the spine, the left half of the pelvis, and a jawbone. The teeth on the jawbone appear to have had some dental work.”

“I didn’t know the ancestors of the Tongva tribe had a dental plan,” Candice said.

“They definitely didn’t,” Kelsey confirmed. “Anyway, given the fact that there were fillings in the teeth on the jawbone, Dr. Acuna called in one of our county’s medical examiners, Dr. Catalpa, whom I know personally, as he’s helped out with a few
of our cases in the past. He’s who we call when decomp is so bad that all we have left is a skeleton.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “The additional bones were from someone who died recently.”

“Yes. Dr. Catalpa says they’ve been in the ground no more than a year. Two at the most.”

“Whoa,” I said, my mind racing to try to figure out how this new twist could figure into the cases we were working on.

Before I could draw any conclusions or hypotheses, Candice said, “How’d they get buried so deep? And, for that matter, how did someone know where to dig to put them next to a set of ancient remains when no living person could’ve known those remains were down there in the first place?”

“They didn’t,” Kelsey said. “Dr. Catalpa and Dr. Acuna examined photos of the remains taken immediately after the bulldozer dug them up. The extra pieces weren’t there.”

“So how’d they get mixed in with the tribesman’s remains?” Candice asked.

“The tribesman’s bones took a few days to be dug up, and each day they were photographed to make sure the process was well documented. The photos on the third day of the dig show the extra bones scattered among the skeleton of the tribesman. No one noticed until the photos were carefully screened by Dr. Catalpa and Dr. Acuna.”

I felt a chill go through me and the memory of the Edwards kid walking away from the dig site went through my mind. But that had been the night immediately after my discovery of the tribesman. The bones hadn’t appeared for two more days. We’d seen for ourselves that the young teen liked to sneak out of his house and patrol the neighborhood in the middle of the night. It could’ve been purely innocent. The kid could’ve merely been
curious what all the fuss was about at the edge of his hood and wanted to see the dig site up close.

And yet, it was another one of those coincidences that bothered me, especially as it looped back to the Edwardses.

“What do they know about the victim?” Candice asked next. “I mean, I know it’s only a leg bone and some extra parts, but is there anything that can point you guys to identifying who it was?”

Kelsey nodded. “The victim was young. The growth plates hadn’t completely sealed on the leg bone. Dr. Catalpa is estimating that the victim was between twelve and fourteen. Maybe a little older or younger depending on the individual development. He also believes the victim was a male.”

“Male?” Candice and I both said together. “You sure?” I asked.

“I’m not,” Kelsey said. “But Dr. Catalpa said that the pelvis is more consistent with a prepubescent male rather than a female. The leg bone is also a bit heavier than most female adolescent leg bones, and the jawbone is also slightly heavier than most young females’. He says he’s eighty percent certain they belong to an adolescent male. He’ll need more time for analysis to determine race and solidify gender, and we can get a DNA sample from some tissue left on the pelvis, but it’s highly unlikely this kid would be in the system, so the DNA would have to be strictly for profiling. We could also use it to identify the victim, if the dental records aren’t available for some reason, for comparison to his parents’ DNA, assuming we can offer up a possible name for the victim.”

“I’m betting there’re lots of missing young men his age in the area, though, right?” I said. The runaways alone would likely number in the dozens, if not hundreds.

“Well over six thousand young males between twelve and sixteen have gone missing from L.A. County in the last year alone,” Kelsey said. “That’s for a population of about ten million.”

My jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I had no idea the number was so high.

Kelsey shook her head sadly. “No, not kidding. The vast majority of those cases, however, are either kids who’ve run away from home or who’ve been kidnapped by an alienated parent, who then either takes them across the border or to another state under an assumed name.”

My heart hurt for all the parents who never got to know what became of their children.

“Still,” Kelsey continued, “we estimate that at least five percent of those missing have met some sort of violent end.”

The table fell silent as Candice and I absorbed that.

“Sweet Jesus,” Candice finally said. “That’s three hundred kids! A year!”

“It is,” Kelsey said. “And it’s heartbreaking.”

I shook my head. Sometimes, no matter how many hours we put in helping the FBI with their cases, it was hard to think we were making any kind of real difference at all. “I hate statistics like that,” I said.

“Me too,” Kelsey agreed. “But if we’re really lucky, maybe we can help bring closure to one family whose young child was murdered and tossed away like garbage.”

Candice and I traded a look. We’d do whatever we could to help with that. “It explains why you couldn’t identify the fourth victim from the graves you had a vision of,” Candice said to me. “Remember? You were waffling back and forth between it being a male or a female. If the bones come back as a young boy, then we’ll know why it was hard for you to pin down.”

“That’s true,” I said. “I hate that it’s true, but you’re right.”
And then I just couldn’t get the thing with the Edwards kid at the grave site out of my mind, so I said to Kelsey, “You know, I saw Will Edwards’s son nosing around the excavation site the other night around three a.m.”

Her brow rose. “Will Edwards? The guy you’ve been tailing for the past couple of days?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re sure it was his kid?”

“I’m sure.”

“What night was that exactly?”

“The night after I discovered the remains of the Tongva tribesman.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t two nights later?” she asked.

“Positive.”

“Do we know how old this kid is?”

I looked at Candice and she answered for me. “He just turned fifteen.”

“And did you see him do anything suspicious other than snoop, Abby?”

I frowned. “No.”

“Hmmm,” she said, drumming her fingers on her coffee cup. “I’ll give you that it’s a really odd coincidence that you believe Will Edwards is connected to the bank robberies, and now his son is caught sniffing around the site where some bones belonging to a possible murder victim were found, but we’ve had reports of quite a few people from the neighborhood ducking under the yellow tape to take a look. Perez and Robinson are out there and they suggested that there’re far too many footprints from too many different pairs of shoes to even begin to track them all.”

I nodded. I’d figured that merely spotting the young man at the site wasn’t enough to raise a red flag of suspicion, but
something about seeing him there that late at night and trolling the neighborhoods on at least one night afterward bugged me. I didn’t know if he had anything to do with the appearance of the extra bones at the burial site . . . but I didn’t know that he was completely innocent either.

Candice said, “How can we help, Kelsey? I mean, I’m assuming you’re telling us all this for a reason.”

Hart’s expression turned slightly smug. “You would be right, Candice. Rivera called me into his office when all of this came to light. He doesn’t know what to make of it, but he’s a little spooked that Abby mentioned there would be remains discovered on that hill and now two sets have actually been found. He wanted me to find you, Abby, and talk to you—get your impressions as to what we’re really dealing with.”

My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” she said, lifting her coffee cup to offer me a little victory toast.

I wanted to revel in smug satisfaction, but it all felt so hollow. Rivera was only trying to cover his ass, and a young man’s remains had been tossed away like trash. It was too disturbing to feel good about. “I don’t know what I can offer,” I said honestly. “I mean, other than what I already have.”

“Nothing on the boy?” she pressed.

I glanced at Candice, because Kelsey was putting me on the spot. Candice made a motion with her hand, like I should offer up something if I could. Taking a deep breath, I focused on the ether surrounding the newly discovered remains, and to my surprise, the image of the cross at the grave site came to mind, only now I could see that the cross wasn’t a cross at all—but a
T
. And then, floating up from the depths of my intuition came a name. Crystal clear, it played in my mind like a familiar song. “
T
for
Trevor,” I said. It just rolled out of my mouth and it seemed to shock both Candice and Kelsey.

“You got a name?” Candice asked with wide eyes.

She had reason to be surprised. I never get names. Well, maybe not
never
, but it’s
super
rare for me. But this boy’s spirit was restless. He wanted me to discover his identity. I could feel it. Closing my eyes, I tried to call up his image. It was very nebulous, but I felt strongly like he had dark hair, dark eyes, and long gangly limbs. At least when he was alive.

“Yes,” I said. “His name was Trevor.”

“Trevor what?” Kelsey asked, and I opened my eyes to see her scribbling herself a note.

“I don’t know,” I said. “All I’m getting is the name Trevor. It could be his first name, or it could be his last. If it helps, I think he had brown hair and brown eyes, but I don’t think he was Latino or Native American. He feels Caucasian to me.”

“Age?” Kelsey tried.

I frowned. I wasn’t some database with all the right answers— “Fourteen,” I said, when it just popped into my mind. The information was so clear it was a bit startling. “He died in the area,” I added. “His remains feel close to where he lived.”

“So, La Cañada Flintridge or Pasadena,” Candice said.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Can you tell us how he died?”

“No clue,” I said. Then in my mind’s eye I saw a smoking gun—which didn’t necessarily mean he’d been shot. It was simply my symbol for murder. “He was murdered,” I said. “But exactly how, I’m not sure.”

“Any idea by whom?” Kelsey asked next.

Her questions were starting to annoy me. I understood that she was simply naive about how my intuitive brain worked, but
being pressed for details like this can feel almost like an invasion, or rather, like someone trying to take over my radar. By simply being asked a question, my radar will respond with an answer, bypassing my free will. I shrugged off the annoyance, however, and said, “By someone he knew. And possibly trusted.”

“Anything else you can tell me?” Kelsey asked.

I waited to see if more information about Trevor would come to me, but nothing did. “No. I think you’ve got enough to go on for now. If I get anything else, I’ll call you.”

“Thanks, Abby,” Kelsey said. “I’ll go back to Rivera with this and we’ll look into it.”

As she gathered up her things to go, I put a hand out to stop her and said, “Did you get anything on Cindy Clawson?”

Candice looked sharply at me. I might’ve forgotten to mention to her that I’d asked Kelsey to dig up any dirt she could.

“No,” she said. “But I only got Rivera to sign off on the subpoena right before I called you. I was in his office talking to him about it when Perez and Robinson called in with the news about the extra remains in the grave.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling my hand back. “Let me know if you find out anything.”

“I will,” she said.

After she’d gone, Candice turned to me. “I didn’t know we were farming out our investigations to her now.”

My cheeks filled with heat. I should’ve told Candice that I’d asked Kelsey to look into Cindy Clawson. “You were napping,” I said.

“Really?” Candice replied. “That’s your excuse for sidestepping me?”

“Sorry. You’re right. I should’ve asked and/or told you about it.”

“Yep.”

“Can we be best friends again?”

Candice rolled her eyes, but the edges of her mouth quirked. “Fine,” she said. “But you owe me dinner or something.”

“Oh, man!” I said, lifting my phone to look at the time. “I can’t believe it’s almost four! We skipped lunch, Candice! And I didn’t even
notice
.”

“Let’s grab something and talk about all this, okay? None of it is making a hell of a lot of sense to me right now, and I want to get a handle on it.”

“Deal,” I said, and we left in search of good grub.

A bit later I sat happily in front of a plate of perfectly grilled sea scallops on a mound of polenta that was so rich and creamy you’d think you’d died and gone to heaven. “How does this not have dairy in it?” I said with a small moan of pleasure.

“I’m telling you,” Candice said, pointing her fork at me as she tucked into her Alaskan sea bass, “L.A. has all the best restaurants for healthy eaters.”

“We should move here,” I said, not at all serious.

“We should,” she agreed, and winked.

After we’d finished eating, we both ordered coffee and got down to discussing everything we’d learned so far. “You’re sure the robberies and the future murders are connected, right?”

“I am,” I said. “There
is
a connection between them, but I can’t really decide what it could be.”

“And what about Trevor? Do you think his murder figures into this?”

I really wanted to say no, mostly because I didn’t want to head down yet another rabbit hole, but something told me that his murder was another link in this very complicated chain. “He figures into this too,” I said.

BOOK: A Grave Prediction (Psychic Eye Mystery)
12.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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