Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (11 page)

M
.J. trembled as she clung to Gilley’s arm while they watched Milo and Candice being
loaded into separate ambulances. Nearby, Dutch stood stiff and pale, clearly shaken
to the core. A team of firemen was currently suiting up in hazmat gear, ready to enter
the house, and two more first responders were lying on the grass sucking oxygen through
masks secured around their faces. They’d been the police officers who’d shown up ahead
of everyone else after M.J. had called 911, and they’d managed to pull Milo and Candice
partially out of the house, but then they’d collapsed on the driveway themselves.

Faced with four unconscious people, M.J. had nearly lost her cool, but she’d held
it together long enough to order Gil to make another emergency call to 911 and run
to aid the victims.

She’d first reached Candice, whose complexion was a frightening greenish yellow. And
it was as she reached Abby’s best friend that she felt a wave of dizziness overcome
her. M.J. had lifted her chin and noticed the side door of the house still ajar, and
something about the small window right above her had also caught her attention. There
was duct tape along the perimeter of the window.

As her head swooned, she put it together and immediately held her breath. Hooking
Candice under the arms, she managed to drag her well out onto the lawn. M.J. checked
to make sure Candice was breathing and, thankfully, she was. Then she kicked off her
heels and tugged free the pashmina she’d been wearing before tying it at the back
of her head to cover her nose and mouth. She then dashed back to the three men still
lying prone on the drive, holding her breath as she got close. Darting forward, she
pulled the door to the house closed before grabbing Milo under each arm, and with
great effort, she managed to get him onto the lawn as well.

“M.J.!” Gilley called from inside the car, where she’d ordered him to stay. “They’re
on their way!”

M.J. had already gotten that from the parade of sirens coming closer and closer, but
she was too busy to do anything other than check to make sure Milo was still breathing—which
he was—and rush back to the police officers.

Gilley joined her and she couldn’t help barking a command at him. “Hold your breath!”

His eyes crossed and he waved his hand in front of his face. “Sweet baby Jesus! What
the hell is that?”

“Hold your breath!”
she yelled again as she bent down to the officer who was now semiconscious.

Gilley puffed out his cheeks and grabbed the man’s other arm, and together they got
him to his feet and over to the lawn, where he fell to his knees and promptly threw
up.

Gil scrunched up his face and looked like he was about to hurl himself, but M.J. didn’t
have time to deal with him. She dashed back one final time to the remaining officer,
who had recovered enough to get to his knees. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders,
she managed to get him to the others and then she flopped to the ground herself.

Pulling the wrap down, she crawled over to Candice, whose eyelashes were beginning
to flutter, as she let out a small moan. M.J. took off the pashmina and scrunched
it into a ball, placing it underneath Candice’s head. “Candice?” she asked. “Honey,
can you hear me?”

Another moan behind her caused M.J. to look back. Milo had rolled to his side and
was struggling to lift his head. “Gilley!” M.J. said. “Help him!”

The sirens grew deafening and M.J. was never happier to see a set of ambulances in
her life. These were quickly followed by two fire trucks and four squad cars. A series
of black sedans also appeared at the top of the drive and she gave over the care of
the four victims to the paramedics, pulling Gilley back to their car to give the emergency
workers room.

A swarm of uniformed and plainclothes responders descended on the area, and M.J. felt
that familiar terrible sense of doom hit her in the solar plexus again. She saw several
people run to the house with guns drawn, and she had to shout at them to stop. “The
house is full of gas!”

That’s when she caught sight of Dutch, who was pushing his way through the crowd to
get to the front door. “Dutch! Wait! Don’t go in there!” she cried, but he either
didn’t hear her or was ignoring her. M.J. turned to a nearby man in a black suit with
an air of authority—she remembered Brice had called him Director Gaston—and cried,
“Stop him!”

Gaston shouted to two others dressed in formal attire nearby, and they raced to intercept
Dutch, who put up a hell of a fight in his desperation to get inside the house.

M.J. didn’t know whether Abby was inside, but she suspected that if the bride-to-be
was in there, she’d likely be dead from the fumes and beyond their help. “What do
we do?” Gilley asked.

M.J. wrapped her shaking hands around his arm and focused
on Candice and Milo, who were being loaded onto stretchers. She wondered if they’d
be in any condition to talk. “Come with me,” she said, moving around the cluster of
people over to the front of the large house. Closing her eyes, M.J. reached out with
all the power of her sixth sense, searching for any hint of Abby inside the house.

“What’re you doing?” Gilley whispered.

“I don’t think she’s in there,” M.J. said, opening her eyes and searching for the
groom.

“How can you tell?” Gil asked.

“I don’t know how to explain it, Gil, but the house feels empty. And when I try to
get a bead on Abby, I feel her energy behind me, not in front of me.”

Gil moved to look around M.J., squinting toward the road. “I don’t see her.”

M.J. sighed. “Not behind me, behind me,” she said impatiently, still searching the
crowd for Dutch. “She’s somewhere to the south, and she’s alive, but something really
bad has happened to her.”

Gil motioned toward the house filled with gas. “Gee, M.J., you
think
?”

M.J. spotted Dutch at last, over at the ambulances, attempting to get close to Milo,
who was being wheeled into the bay, but two firemen, Director Gaston, and Brice were
holding him back, demanding he let the paramedics tend to Milo and Candice. In her
bare feet, M.J. hurried over to him and managed to grab the sleeve of his tuxedo.
“She’s not here!” she said loudly to get his attention.

Dutch snapped his head to her, then cast a desperate glance at the house and the hazmat
team only now approaching it. “How do you know?”

“I just know,” she said. She didn’t have time to explain it and
deep in her bones she could feel that time was running out. “But we have to find her,
Dutch. I think she’s in serious trouble.”

Dutch’s eyes darted to the house again, then at Milo and Candice on their stretchers.
Finally he turned to her desperately. “Tell me what you need to help find her and
I’ll get it for you.”

T
he morning after the bombing I wanted to help Dutch out by getting his breakfast ready,
just to give him another few minutes to sleep. The poor guy was exhausted and I hated
that he had several more late nights ahead of him.

Brody was still asleep on our couch when I came downstairs. As quietly as I could,
I shuffled around in the kitchen, whipping up half a dozen eggs and frying up some
potatoes to spoon into a couple of flour tortillas for some handy breakfast burritos
for the three of us.

Of course, I also had to share the eggs with Eggy and Tuttle. “You two are getting
a little pudgy, you know,” I told them as I set their bowls down. The irony of feeding
them an extra breakfast was not lost on me either. “Mommy will have to get Daddy to
walk you a little more.”

Eggy wolfed down his portion before lifting his muzzle to eye me skeptically.

I wiggled my cane. “You want me to walk you with this thing?” I asked him.

He licked his chops.

“Oh, sure, it’d be fun until you saw a squirrel, then I’d be in trouble.”

Eggy wagged his tail.

I bent down to stroke his graying muzzle. Eggy was almost eight. “Such a good pup.”

“Morning,” I heard a voice say.

Turning, I spied Dutch in the doorway, already showered, dressed, and ready to bolt
to work. I straightened up and looked at him crossly. “I told you I’d get you breakfast
so you could sleep in a little longer.”

He walked into the kitchen and kissed me on the cheek before lifting one of the burritos.
“These look good,” he said evasively.

“Honey, it’s only six thirty. Why are you already showered and dressed?”

“Couldn’t go back to sleep,” he said, taking a bite and giving me his best “I’m totally
innocent of all crimes you might be ready to accuse me of” look.

“Uh-huh. And the minute my back is turned, were you thinking of slipping outta here
and heading to work without me?”

“No,” Dutch said.

Liar, liar, pants on fire…,
the little voice in my head said.

I reached into the pocket of my robe and pulled out both sets of his car keys. “Good.
Then you won’t mind if I hold on to these until I’m showered and dressed too, hmm?”

Dutch’s eyes narrowed. “Nope.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire…

I put two burritos on a plate and handed them to Dutch. “Make sure Brody eats something
while I’m getting ready. I promised his friend’s mother that we’d drop him off around
seven thirty.” With that, I headed upstairs.

I was back down only fifteen minutes later. My sixth sense had kicked in right in
the middle of a great hot shower and told me
Dutch had outsmarted me. Sopping wet, I fished through my robe and found both sets
of car keys still in the pocket of my robe and the door to the bathroom still locked,
but that nagging feeling of being outwitted persisted.

I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, threw on some black slacks and matching sweater,
and rushed downstairs. (Okay, okay, so I threw on some mascara and a little blush
too. A girl’s gotta have some vanity now and again.)

When I reached the landing, Brody was sitting bleary-eyed on the couch, tucking into
a burrito. “Hey, there,” I said, looking around the room for any sign of my fiancé.

Brody’s mouth was full, so he simply nodded and lifted the burrito up slightly to
show me he liked it.

“Is Dutch around?”

I had to wait for my houseguest to chew and swallow. “He left.”

My jaw dropped. “What do you mean he left?”

Brody took another bite and pointed to a note on the coffee table. I lifted it and
read:

I crushed the note in my fist and rushed to the window. “You son of a beast!” I yelled
the moment I saw my own car was gone. Turning back to Brody (who was looking at me
with big wide eyes), I said, “Was he wearing his vest?”

Brody’s brow furrowed.

“His vest!” I nearly shouted. “Was Dutch wearing his vest?”

The young man had to swallow again. “He was wearing a shirt and a tie, Miss Cooper.
No vest.”

“Dammit!” (Swearing doesn’t count when you realize your fiancé has outwitted you
and
forgotten his bulletproof vest.) Just to be sure, I shuffled to the closet and pulled
it open. Dutch’s vest wasn’t there, so at least he’d taken it with him, and for that
I was partially grateful. Still, he wasn’t wearing it, which meant he wasn’t taking
me seriously. “Grab your gear,” I told Brody, pulling my purse down from the shelf
and reaching for the door. I’d have to drop Brody off and rush to the office to try
to catch up with Dutch. Of course, he could be off to any one of the many interviews
and meetings I knew he’d lined up for the day. It was actually somewhat surprising
that he’d come home last night at all, but then, I knew he’d never leave me alone
at night with a stranger in the house, even one as seemingly innocent as Brody.

After locking up, I rushed Brody into the car and grumbled through adjusting the seat
and the mirrors and right then I heard a ding that made me focus on the dashboard.
Dutch must have come home on fumes, because the gas gauge warning light was bright
red, indicating that I had less than two miles of fuel left. “Well, that’s just craptastic!”

“You okay?” Brody asked.

I glanced at him and realized that I was making the poor kid really nervous. Taking
a calm, steadying breath, I said, “Fine. I’m fine.”

Brody didn’t look convinced.

“We’ll need to stop at the gas station on the corner before I drop you at your friend’s
house.”

“Okay.”

“Sorry for the outburst,” I said, putting the car into gear and beginning to back
out of the driveway. “I’m just worried about Dutch.”

Brody nodded. “Yeah. He feels a lot like my mom did yesterday.”

I stomped on the brakes and turned to him. “What did you say?”

That alarmed expression returned to Brody’s face. “Sorry,” he said, throwing up his
hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

I put the car back into park. “I know you didn’t,” I said, trying to conceal my own
surprise and fear. “But it was a really interesting statement. One only a highly intuitive
person would make. So, please, explain to me what you were sensing.”