Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (4 page)

“Morning,” Brice said, sliding into the seat to offer me one of two cups of coffee
he held.

I took the coffee and waited for the lecture.

“Dutch sent me over,” he explained. Something I’d already guessed. “He called me from
the car and said you were tailing him.”

“I’m not going to get in the way, sir,” I said, adopting the formal address because
he was on duty and, technically, I worked for him.

“I know,” he replied, turning his gaze back to the chaotic scene. “And I’m a little
torn about that.”

I sighed. “You think I could help.”

“I know you could help. But Dutch would probably do something stupid and insubordinate
if I talked you into joining us.”

“And we know where Gaston falls on the subject,” I added.

He waved his cup at the throng of people working the scene. “This is only going to
make him more insistent, Cooper.” Brice rarely called me Abby, and truth be told,
I rather liked the way he treated me like one of the guys.

“So what’re you saying?”

“I’m saying that when Dutch called me on his way here to ask me to talk some sense
into you, my first thought wasn’t to order you away from the scene.”

I bit my lip, my eyes searching for Dutch and finding him scribbling in his notebook
while Gaston spoke to him. “Something’s changed, sir.”

“What’s that?”

“Something around Dutch has changed.”

Brice’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

I sat up straighter and tried to think of how to explain it to him. He didn’t have
an intuitive bone in his body, so sometimes my predictions—or the way I worded them—confused
him. He was a pretty literal guy. “There’s been a shift in the ether,” I began, watching
him only to see his brow furrow even more. “My Spidey sense says that Dutch is in
serious danger.”

The brow rose sharply. “What kind of danger?”

My gaze drifted back to the scene and I scanned the crowd standing behind the police
barricades. “I think he might die,” I whispered so softly that Brice asked me to repeat
myself.

When I did, he scratched his chin and stared hard at his second-in-command. “How?”
he finally asked.

I shook my head and closed my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think someone might try to shoot him?”

I considered that, and had to discard it. “I don’t think so, sir, but I can’t say
for sure.”

“Is it someone from an old case he worked on?” Brice asked next, clearly trying to
help me identify the source of the threat.

I shook my head. “No. The threat feels strongly connected to this case, sir.”

“
This
case?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Brice blew out a sigh. “I can’t take him off it, Cooper. Gaston would never let me
remove my top man, even if the prompt came from you.”

I felt my eyes well with tears again, and I turned to my friend,
not my boss, and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m so afraid for him, Brice. I don’t know
how to stop it from happening.”

Harrison was quiet for a moment before he said, “I do.”

My hopes lifted. “You do?”

“Work the case, Abby,” he said bluntly. “If someone connected to this mess is really
out to hurt Rivers, you’re the only one that’ll see it coming in time to stop it.”

My crew weighed in immediately and my mind was flooded with a feeling that under no
circumstances should I get involved, but then I turned to look at Dutch again and
I made up my own mind. “Okay.”

Brice seemed surprised. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “You’re right. It’s the only thing I can do to try to keep him safe.”

Brice clinked his coffee cup with mine. “Welcome aboard,” he said, but then he sobered
a little and added, “Dutch is gonna go ballistic when he hears that I talked you into
working the case.”

“He will,” I agreed.

Then Brice seemed to think of something, because he reached for his cell, and the
door handle. “Listen,” he said before departing, “sit tight for a few while I figure
this out, okay?”

I eyed him quizzically but agreed to stay put, and about a half hour later I knew
what Brice had been up to, and I silently thanked the gods for his resourcefulness
when a bright yellow Porsche pulled up next to me—my best friend behind the wheel.

“T
hat is one sweet car,” Gilley Gillespie said, whistling appreciatively, as he and
M. J. Holliday walked past a shiny yellow Porsche parked in the lot of the manor home
where Abby and Dutch were about to get hitched.

“I think that belongs to Abby’s best friend, Candice,” M.J. said, digging in her purse
to retrieve the wedding invitation in case the doorman asked for it. She remembered
meeting Candice the last time she got to hang out with Abby, which was a few years
earlier when Abby had needed M.J.’s help ridding an investment property she’d purchased
of its spectral squatters. M.J. was a spirit medium and professional ghostbuster.
Gilley was her best friend and her partner in their ghostbusting business, and the
computer tech on their cable TV show,
Ghoul Getters
.

“How can you tell it’s Candice’s?” Gilley asked.

“My first clue was the vanity plate,” M.J. replied. The tag on the yellow Porsche
read CANDYPI.

“Oh,” Gil said, craning his neck to take a look. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

M.J. shivered in the cold breeze blowing across the huge lawn of the manor home. It
was a pretty awful day for a wedding, she thought moodily, pulling at the wrap around
her shoulders. The sky was dark and overcast, and the local weather forecast threatened
rain for late afternoon.

Still, there was something else bothering M.J. as they neared the entrance and waited
for three people ahead of them to show the doorman their invitations. Something had
shifted in the energy around her that morning, and as the time of Abby and Dutch’s
wedding drew closer, she found herself anxious to get to the manor house and check
in with the bride.

“Why are we here two hours before the actual ceremony again?” Gilley asked as they
made their way to the interior.

“Because the invite said that guests were welcome to arrive anytime between twelve
and two and because I want to see if I can have a private word with Abby,” M.J. told
him, tucking the invitation back into her purse and looking around at the small crowd
already in attendance. “She said she needed my input on a case she’s been working,
but she never called me to give me the details, and I have the most pressing feeling
that she still needs my help with it.”

“Ugh,” Gil said, pouting next to her. “Only you would take a job during a wedding.”
M.J. couldn’t really blame Gil for being grouchy. After all, she’d dragged him to
Austin to be her plus one because her boyfriend, Heath, couldn’t make it—he was busy
moving his mother into her new condo in Santa Fe. “Hey,” M.J. said, nudging her best
friend. “Stop pouting, would you?”

Gil leveled his eyes at her. “Girl, you know I love a good wedding, but what I love
even more is a good nap, and the fact that you dragged me away from a comfortable—oh
look! Food!”

Gil immediately headed in the direction of a small buffet table with artfully arranged
hors d’oeuvres, and M.J. breathed a sigh
of relief. That’d keep Gil’s bouche amused for a little while at least. Hopefully
long enough for her to find Abby and make sure she was okay.

After scanning the crowd, M.J. found a face she recognized—Abby’s fiancé, Dutch Rivers.
He was a great-looking guy whom she’d met only once but it was enough to leave a very
favorable impression. He seemed perfectly suited to Abby, as he was even-keeled and
cool under pressure, with a keen insight and a sharp mind. Not much got by him. Also,
he clearly adored Abby; that much had been evident when M.J. had seen the two together
two and a half years ago, and it was even more evident now, because although Dutch
seemed to be engaged in conversation with a few other people around him, M.J. noticed
that he kept bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, and casting quick glances
toward the back of the house where the bride was obviously getting ready. He looked
as excited and impatient to get things under way as any love-struck groom could.

“Well, hello, handsome,” said a voice right next to M.J. She turned her head and saw
that Gil had come up beside her again holding a small plate piled high with hors d’oeuvres
while he drank in the sight of Dutch across the room. More than weddings and a nap,
Gil loved free food and good-looking men. “I thought you were taken?” M.J. kidded,
referring to Gilley’s new beau.

“I’m taken, not dead, M.J.,” Gil replied. “I can look and flirt all I want. I’m just
not allowed to touch.”

“We can all breathe a little easier now,” M.J. said with a laugh. Then she pointed
across the room to the object of Gilley’s current affection. “That’s the groom. Dutch.
Remember? We went to dinner with him and Abby before when we helped her with her investment
house.”

“Sugar, I could never forget a man that gorgeous,” Gil replied, popping a small quiche
into his mouth.

That anxious, nervous feeling that’d been bothering M.J. all morning cropped up again.
“I need to find Abby,” she whispered.

“Before the wedding?” Gil said.

“Yeah. I keep feeling like everything’s not okay with her.”

Gil made a face. “How could things be anything other than perfect for a girl about
to marry that tall drink of water?”

M.J. ignored him and moved away in the direction that Dutch seemed to be perpetually
focusing on, the back of the manor home. Winding her way through the crowd, she finally
came to a corridor that looked promising. “I don’t think you’re supposed to go back
there,” Gil said from right behind her, and M.J. jumped. She hadn’t realized he’d
been following her so closely.

“Do me a favor,” she told him. “Stay here and keep a lookout. I just want a quick
word with the bride.”

Gilley’s frown returned. “Are you about to meddle?”

“No, Gil, that’s
your
territory. Just keep a lookout. I’ll be back in a minute.”

M.J. then hurried into the corridor and followed it to a room with the sounds of excited
voices. Knocking first, she poked her head in, but found two women wearing jeans and
impatient looks. “Oh, sorry!” M.J. said. “I thought the bride might be in here.”

“She’s not,” said one woman, and M.J. noticed she was wrapping up the cord to a curling
iron. “And neither is the maid of honor.”

“Uh,” M.J. said, not quite knowing what they were subtly hinting at. “Are they farther
down the hall?”

The other girl, who was shuffling makeup around on the vanity, said, “Nope. The bride’s
missing and now so is the maid of honor.”

A jolt of alarm went through M.J. “Missing?” she repeated. “The bride is
missing
?”

Both women nodded. “We see this thing all the time. The bride gets nervous and tries
to bolt right before the ceremony. I just did a wedding three weeks ago where the
bride fled to the Bahamas with the best man.”

M.J.’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t imagine Abby skipping out on Dutch. Those two
were as meant to be as any two people she’d ever met. “Does the groom know?” she whispered.

Both women shrugged. “I think only Mrs. Cooper-Masters knows,” said the woman with
the curling iron. And she and the makeup artist exchanged another knowing look. “Which
is why we’re hiding in here. No way do I want to be around that bundle of crazy right
now.”

M.J. nodded and closed the door. She hadn’t met Abby’s sister, but she’d heard she
could be a handful. Still, that feeling of unease heightened up another several notches.
Something bad was happening. Really, really bad, and it involved Abby. Something far
more terrible than just Abby skipping out on the wedding was taking place, M.J. could
feel it in her bones.

Moving back down the corridor, she found Gilley still popping those hors d’oeuvres
and staring at the gathering crowd. “Did you find her?” he asked when she came up
next to him.

M.J. wrung her hands. “No. And now I’m worried.”

“Maybe she’s in one of the other rooms?” Gil suggested. “A house this big has to have
a whole wing devoted to dressing rooms.”

But M.J. ignored him. She believed the hairstylist and the makeup artist. Abby was
missing, and M.J. didn’t think she was even on the property. The question was, Should
she say something to Dutch? Because it was obvious he didn’t yet know that his bride
was MIA.

Another wave of unease washed over her, as if in answer to her internal struggle,
and M.J. was moving toward Dutch without giving it any more thought.

He was still engaged in conversation with several other guys, one also dressed in
a tux and almost as handsome as Dutch, and three others dressed in suits who bore
a striking resemblance to the groom.

As she came up next to the small crowd, she knew she’d have to work to get his attention.
“Dutch!” she called softly, but he was in the middle of telling a joke and not aware
of her presence. “Dutch!” M.J. tried again, a little louder.