Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (24 page)

“Yes,” I said, motioning to Dutch and Candice that I wanted to take the lead with
Janice. “I know it’s painful, but can you tell me exactly what you remember about
that day?”

Janice squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. Her energy also reacted to the
memory of that day, shrinking against
her physical body, as if it was acting protectively. I knew then that this poor woman
was suffering terribly.

With her eyes still closed, Janice said, “I was taking Jack to the mall to buy some
new sneakers. He’s been growing so fast and his shoes were getting too tight. It was
a really pretty day, and I thought we’d get him some sneakers, then have lunch in
the food court. Jack loves that food court….” Her voice trailed off for a moment before
she finally opened her eyes and continued. “We were heading there from the shoe store
when I saw this girl push her way through the doors into the mall. It was weird, I
mean, I don’t know what made me look in her direction, but I saw the doors open, and
I saw her come into the mall, and the way she moved…it was just…off, you know?”

I nodded, because I’d noticed the same thing from the security footage.

“So, I had my eyes on her,” Janice continued. “And all of a sudden I felt the hairs
on the back of my neck stand up on end, and I had goose pimples on my arms. It was
really weird. I knew in my gut that something was really wrong.” At this point Janice
looked directly at me. “You ever have one of those feelings?”

“All the time.”

She nodded. “Maybe it was a mother’s instinct, or woman’s intuition, but I knew there
was something really dangerous about that girl. And I had Jack by the hand, and he
was sort of pulling on me, but I was still focused on that girl, and then she said
something….” Again her voice trailed off.

“What?” I prompted. “What’d she say, Janice?”

The young mother shook her head. “I wish I could remember. Isn’t that funny? I can
remember everything else about that moment—how that girl looked, so frightened and
pale, and I can remember the song playing on the mall’s sound system, and I can
remember the smells of the food court not far away and the color of the tile floor
under my feet—but the exact words that girl said to me, I just can’t remember.”

She was staring at me with the most haunted eyes, and they began to fill with tears,
which slid down her cheeks. “Isn’t it terrible?” Janice asked me. “This girl knows
she’s about to speak her last words to someone, and she chooses me, and I can’t even
remember what she said.”

“You were terrified,” I told her, struggling against the urge to get up and comfort
her. If I did that, I knew we’d have to stop the interview, and I needed to help her
get through the rest of it. “It’s completely understandable, Janice. No one could
possibly fault you in that moment for not remembering. You had your son to protect.”

Janice wiped her eyes and nodded grudgingly. “Yeah. Some protective mother I am. Jack’s
going to have scars for the rest of his life.”

“And he’ll have a life because of you,” I told her.

She shrugged, unable to let herself off the hook. “If only we hadn’t gone to the mall
that day,” she said. “I had this feeling that morning that I should order his shoes
online, but I really needed a break from hanging out here at the house. I lost my
job last month, so I’ve been home alone with Jack and the walls felt like they were
closing in.”

“Where’s your son now?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t heard any noise that might sound
like a toddler in the house.

“He’s with my mother-in-law,” she said, her mouth turning down slightly. “My husband
said it was for the best. He and Jack moved back to his mom’s house last week. He
said it’ll give me time to sort this all out.”

I bit my lip. I saw my symbol for divorce hovering in the ether. I looked around the
house again. In my mind’s eye I could see it
filled with moving boxes. And poor Janice was a long way away from being able to support
herself again. She’d been horribly traumatized, and I doubted she’d be able to get
through an interview much less show up for work and be productive.

I really wanted to help her, but I had to focus on that day at the mall first. “Janice,
what happened right after the girl in the mall spoke to you?”

She blinked at me with blank eyes for a moment before she said, “Oh, well…I guess
I ran out of there.”

Dutch caught my eye. He wanted me to push her a little.

“You ran out of the mall,” I repeated. Janice nodded. “So she said something to you
that made you run out of the mall?”

Janice’s brow furrowed. “Maybe…or I saw the bomb.”

“You saw the bomb?”

Janice didn’t answer. She was staring at the floor.

“Could you describe it?” I asked.

Again, Janice didn’t answer. She seemed lost in thought.

I waited a bit and then tried again. “Janice, you said you saw the bomb. What did
it look like?”

She shook her head and snapped her eyes up to me. “I remember!” she exclaimed. “The
girl, she said, ‘It’s not me!’”

I cocked my head. “It’s not me?”

“Yes!
That’s
what she said! And then she moved her arms to the side and I saw that bomb and I
grabbed Jack’s hand, lifted him onto my hip, and ran like hell. ‘It’s not me.’ God,
I’ve been trying to remember that for weeks.”

Janice appeared so relieved, but then her expression clouded over again. “I wonder
what the hell she meant by that,” she said.

“Maybe that the bomb wasn’t her doing,” I said.

Janice’s expression turned stricken. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “You think?”

Dutch caught my eye again.
Be careful,
he mouthed.

“We can’t be sure,” I told her. “But that is a curious thing to say before the bomb
you’re wearing goes off.”

Janice went back to staring at the floor again.

“Janice,” I said, hoping I hadn’t lost her attention for good this time. “Do you know
where the girl might have been heading?”

“The mall,” she said listlessly.

“Yes,” I agreed, “but I remember seeing the footage from the mall security camera,
and it didn’t look like she was headed to the center of the mall, which is where I
would’ve gone if my intention was to kill a great many people. She appeared to be
heading toward one of the stores, and I was wondering since you were there that day
and saw her enter the mall if maybe you got the same feeling?”

Janice’s gaze snapped to me again. “You know,” she said, “that’s really been bugging
me. I had that exact same feeling too, but I just didn’t know what it meant or who
to tell.”

“What store do you think she was aiming for?”

“That bridal store,” Janice told me. “Carly’s Bridal Boutique. I got my bridesmaids’
dresses there when I got married.”

“Do you know why the girl with the bomb would have aimed for that store?”

Janice grunted derisively. “Maybe because Carly was a real bitch?”

Dutch shifted his stance slightly. I could tell he didn’t think this line of questioning
was important, but my radar had pinged on Janice’s last statement. “Can you elaborate
on that?” I asked her.

Janice sat back against the cushions. I could tell this was exhausting for her. “Carly
owned that boutique since I was in high school. Her daughter and I even graduated
together and we were pretty good friends too. But when I was planning my wedding,
one of my bridesmaids and I had a falling-out, and I asked Carly if I could return
the dress, which hadn’t even been altered yet, and she said no, and she insisted that
all sales were final. I would’ve gotten someone else to wear it and gone with my original
plan to have five bridesmaids, but the friend I had a falling-out with was a size
two—no way could any of my other friends fit that size. And I heard she was like that
with a lot of other customers too.” I wondered if Janice knew that Carly had been
killed in the blast. I held back mentioning it because Janice was in such a fragile
state that I didn’t want to risk further upsetting her.

About then I saw Candice subtly point to her watch, and I knew we were going to run
short on time if we stayed much longer with Janice. We had other people to talk to
before we got back on the road, and I stood up, knowing I’d gotten something from
the conversation, but I didn’t quite know what. I then dug through my purse and pulled
out two cards. The first was my business card, and I offered it to her and said, “I’d
really like to give you a free reading, Janice. I think you’ve got a few challenges
coming up on top of all that you’re dealing with right now, and I’d like to offer
you some insight about how to handle it.”

She eyed my card with a mixture of surprise and wariness. I hadn’t told her I was
a psychic.

“Think about it,” I told her gently before pointing to the other card. “That’s the
name of a really great therapist I know. I’ve sent him a ton of clients and he’s awesome,
patient, and an incredibly understanding guy. If you can’t physically go to him, he’ll
be happy to conduct your sessions over Skype. And he can even talk you through how
to set that up if need be.”

She studied that card with a bit more enthusiasm and far less wariness. “Thanks,”
she said. “I’ve been thinking about trying
to find someone. I know I look bad.” Janice then gazed around at the piles of mess
in her living room. “And all this looks bad,” she added.

“Then call him first. And when you’re ready, think about calling me.”

With that, we left her.

*   *   *

W
e arrived at Taylor Greene’s apartment about twenty minutes later. Taylor and her
roommate shared a bland-looking apartment just off campus.

We had no idea if Taylor’s roommate would be home, but luck was with us and a mousy-looking
brunette greeted our knock with a cautious, “Yeah?”

Dutch flashed his badge and introduced the three of us, then reminded her that he’d
spoken with her on the day after the mall bombing. “Oh, yeah,” she said, reaching
up to twirl her hair nervously. “I remember.”

I saw Dutch’s gaze flicker to his notes. “Can we come in and talk, Amber?”

Her eyes narrowed and as nervous as she was at the sight of Dutch showing up at her
door flashing his badge and wearing his Kevlar, I knew she was a little ticked off
about something. She hesitated in the partially opened doorway for a moment before
she said, “The last time I let you guys in, you tore this place apart. I’m still waiting
for you people to reimburse me for the couch.”

“Did you submit form E-four-seven-six?” he asked.

I turned my head to glare at him. There was no form E476. This was just what the bureau
boys told people who got uppity while their homes were being torn apart during the
execution of a search warrant. Dutch ignored me, and Amber said, “I couldn’t find
that stupid form! I looked all over your Web site and it never came up. If you ask
me, there is no stupid form, and you guys are making it up.”

“I’ll mail you one,” Dutch assured her.

She looked at him doubtfully. Amber wasn’t stupid.

I peeked through the door and could see a portion of said couch. It had a large blanket
over it, but underneath I could tell there were lumps from the stuffing coming through
the tears that I knew the bureau boys had put there.

Reaching nimbly into Dutch’s back pocket, I lifted out his wallet before he could
stop me. Opening it quickly, I withdrew about three hundred in twenties and held them
up for our witness to see. “Let us come in and we’ll reimburse you off the books,
Amber. We really need to talk to you.”

Amber opened the door wider but stood in the way, holding out her hand for the cash.
I placed it in her palm and she stepped to the side. We filed in and I looked around.

The place was fairly Spartan, but neat. Well, as neat as it could be after being ransacked
by the Feds. The lumpy couch was set against the shortest wall in the room, and against
the long wall was a smallish flat-screen TV. There was a cheap patio chair in the
corner next to the TV and one of those tall floor lamps that looked like it could
tip over at the slightest breeze. A sliding glass door, partially hidden by a set
of venetian blinds, led out onto the balcony, and I noticed that Candice immediately
moved to the far left side of the blinds. With her jacket covering her hand, she tugged
on the door. It slid open easily.

The three of us exchanged a knowing look.

“How did that get open?” Amber asked, a note of alarm in her voice.

Candice didn’t answer; instead she pulled on the cord next to the door and slid the
blinds all the way open. We saw that Amber
or Taylor had put one of those long wooden security poles in the ridge of the inner
pane, but the pole had been moved to just outside the metal frame, allowing the door
to easily open.

Candice then bent down and examined the clasp. “It’s been tampered with,” she said.

Meanwhile Amber was standing slack-jawed in the middle of the room. I could tell that
she was freaked-out to discover that her back door had been monkeyed with.

Dutch moved to the door, nudging it open with his knee before stepping out onto the
balcony. I followed him and peered down over the side of the railing. The apartment
was on the second floor, so there was a fifteen-foot drop to the ground, but a huge
live oak tree crowded against the outside wall. Dutch pointed to a low-hanging branch,
then to another one within half an arm’s length of the balcony. “It wouldn’t take
a lot of effort to climb this tree and sneak onto the balcony.”

“Which is why we always keep it locked,” Amber said. She was standing next to Candice
in the doorway. “Taylor caught a creepy-looking guy out on our balcony last June,
and that’s when we got that security pole.”

“There was a guy on your balcony in June?” I repeated.

Amber nodded. “Yeah. A Peeping Tom. He’d been seen looking into a bunch of apartments
here in the complex. The police finally caught him in August.”