First Visions (16 page)

“Are you looking for a battle, Nikki? We can
go outside and throw down if you want. It’s really unnecessary
though since I don’t want anything to do with Jared. He’s spelled
it out to me and you’re the clear winner. He loves you,” she said
and couldn’t conceal the defeat in her tone.

It was hard not to feel a sense of loss over
what could have been. Albeit, she reasoned that maybe things
wouldn’t have worked out anyway if this was the type of girl Jared
was attracted to. The two women couldn’t be anymore dissimilar.
Kate was more of a beer and chips girl while Nikki was more of the
fine wine and foie gras type.

Nikki looked far from satisfied. “Good, take
care to remember that. I’ve been with him for three years and he
would never leave me for a freak like you.”

“If I’m not a threat, then what are you doing
here?” Kate knew she should have let her depart and have the last
word, but her words stung. Skank? Home wrecker? Gold digger with a
crazy figure? All these she could see, but freak? Ouch.

“I’m here to tell you whatever you
think
was happening between you and Jared means nothing. You
know what you are? His quarter-life crisis. He’s like every guy in
the world that goes berserk over the idea of marriage. So, they go
out and look for some young girl with stars in her eyes who strokes
their egos. At the end of the day though,
that
girl doesn’t
get the guy.” Nikki edged her way closer to Kate and practically
spat the words in her face.

It took everything in Kate to keep her
composure and not sucker punch her. “Nikki, leave me alone and go
home to Jared. If I never see both of you again, it’ll be too
soon.”

Kate anticipated Nikki had a few more digs in
her, but Nikki simply gave her a pitiful stare and marched out of
the house. Slamming the door shut, Kate tried to wrap her head
around what had just transpired. She knew she should only blame
herself for this mess. Nikki had every right to be pissed at Kate,
but holy hell; did she have to be so
mean
. She had waved the
white flag couldn’t Nikki merely accept her victory with
grace? At the very least, cut her some slack for helping out on her
sister’s abduction.

Her mother returned about ten minutes later.
She decided to stay mum on the impromptu visit from Nikki. If she
piled anymore problems on her, she may end up checking herself into
the nearest psych ward to get away from Kate. She looked tense
enough when she returned and Kate felt guilt nag at her for sending
her to the police station. “How’d it go?”

“It went good, sweetheart. Jared was very
excited that they finally have a physical description of the guy.
He complimented your drawing and said he’d be able to use it to
distribute to police personnel.”

Following her into the kitchen, her mother
began taking food out of the refrigerator and setting it on the
counter. Her mom still cooked for them both almost every night. For
the most part, she also did the meal planning. Kate was grateful;
she lacked the culinary skills to make anything that did not have a
ton of fat in it. With her high level of stress, her eating habits
lately would prove disastrous to her figure. Alternatively, her mom
could whip up the most delicious meals and still keep them
healthy.

“Did he have any questions you couldn’t
answer?” She really wanted to inquire if he had asked about her,
but she definitely wasn’t going there.

“No, he was relieved to hear at that point he
hadn’t physically…or sexually abused her and he had given her food.
He guessed the guy was trying to figure out how to get a ransom
from the Prestons without getting caught.” Her mother explained and
began to chop vegetables without meeting her eyes.

“Ok and…thanks for going there for me,” Kate
said awkwardly. She stood silently and began to pull apart a split
end she’d just noticed.

Glancing up, she saw her mother watching her
closely. “He asked about you, about how you were. He tried to
apologize for leading you on. He looked horrible, if that’s any
consolation.”

Kate doubted that was possible. Jared was a
heartbreaker, even if he rolled around in a pile of horse shit,
he’d still look better than the average Joe. It was nice he
apologized, but he never had done anything wrong. She was the one
who had to cross a line and ruined an amazing new friendship.
Something she knew she’d be kicking herself over for a long time.
“How did you tell him I was?”

“I said it wasn’t my place to discuss it, but
I would be in touch if you had anything else to offer up about the
case,” she explained.

Kate nodded and decided to drop the
conversation. Even conversing about Jared was making the pain raw
again and she wondered how long it would take for her to get over
him. Right now, she only felt anguished as she comprehended that
the only guy who ever understood her completely would never be the
one to fall in love with her.

Disappointment set in by the weekend when
Kate discovered Cori still had not been found. She’d had high hopes
that as soon as the guy’s picture was released, the cops would have
him in jail and Cori back home within a few hours or days. Her
mother reassured her that the man was bound to be discovered any
minute and it took time for the right person to see the sketch.

In the meantime, Kate had tried to keep Cori
on her mind constantly in the hopes another vision would result
from it. She even attempted to concentrate on the face of the
abductor. If she could worm her way into his mind, she may be able
to get the exact location of where he was keeping the little girl.
Her efforts were fruitless and Kate’s frustration grew. She
couldn’t understand why she couldn’t simply close her eyes and see
what she wanted to see. What kind of vicious joke was it to show
her random images and not give her the ability to help the person
in the visions?

It was a seemingly quiet Sunday morning when
all hell broke loose. Her mother had mentioned the night before she
would be heading out early to go to church (Kate suspected she’d
felt guilty after she had remarked about their lackadaisical church
going ways) and would then be heading to breakfast with a few of
her girlfriends. It was a sad day when your mother had a more
exciting social life than you.

Kate awoke to their house phone ringing. The
ringing would go on until the machine picked up and then start over
again without the caller leaving a message. Glancing at her
nightstand clock, Kate observed it was barely nine o’clock in the
morning. She speculated who would be desperate enough to keep up
the repetitive calling. Moreover, her cell phone sat next to her
and when examining it, she didn’t find any missed calls.

Climbing out of bed, she headed to her
mother’s bedroom to pick up the cordless phone. After probably at
least fifteen minutes of constant calling, she finally picked up.
She barely got out a hello when someone who definitely had way too
much caffeine in their system was blaring in her ear.

“Hello, is this Kate Edwards?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“This is Lois Speedman of the
Franklin
Times
, do you mind answering a few questions for me?” The woman
talked about a mile a minute with her words melded into one
another. What did she have for breakfast? A line of cocaine and
three pots of coffee?

Kate was utterly confused and still
disoriented from sleep. “About what?”

“We want to know about your involvement in
the Corinne Preston abduction case?”

“I’m not involved,” she answered shortly as a
knot began to form in her stomach and her chest tightened.

“We have received reports that you’re working
as a psychic advisor on the case.”

“Shit!” she cursed and quickly disconnected
the call.

Within seconds, the phone began to ring
again. Kate immediately felt dizzy and her heart began to race. It
didn’t take her long to realize her cover had been blown by someone
and the media had been alerted that she was providing information
about Cori’s kidnapping. Running downstairs, she headed for the
front door. Her mother had several newspapers delivered daily and
she wanted to see if anything was written yet about her. As she
pulled open the door, she heard some yelling and noticed about a
half dozen reporters swiftly moving towards her. A couple of camera
flashes momentarily blinded her, but she was able to quickly back
into the house and lock the door behind her. Looking down at her
ratty pajamas bottoms and ripped t-shirt, she really hoped they
weren’t able to get a clear photo of her.

The phone continued to ring. Disconnecting
the cord from the wall, she slumped down on the cold tile of the
kitchen floor. This was bringing back memories of how things were
two years ago when she found Matt. The media wanted her to prove
the legitimacy of her story and explain how exactly she had found
the little boy. When she had refused to do any interviews, the
reporters became pretty persistent. They asked her to make
predictions that could be proven or to give information on other
missing persons’ cases. She loathed being the center of attention
and didn’t know how she could live a normal life after waking up
psychic.

Kate sat for shocked and unmoving. Finally
she rallied enough to crawl over to the den in the back of the
house. The den offered privacy by being windowless and the farthest
room from the front door. There was no way she was permitting the
cameras to get a shot of her in all her early morning glory through
the living room’s large bay windows.

Switching on the desktop computer in the den,
she quickly logged on to the
Franklin Times
website.
Scanning the latest headlines, she didn’t see any new information
about Cori’s abduction. She closed out the page and headed to the
website for the local rag. It was a poor excuse for a newspaper and
printed mostly gossip items with only the occasional news story. In
all honesty, most people brought the paper for the bikini shot of
the girl located next to the horoscopes.

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” she
mumbled to herself.

The third story down featured the headline
“Seer or Scammer? Local Psychic Enlisted to Solve Preston
Abduction.” Clicking on the web link, she quickly scanned the
article. It basically painted her out to be fraud who was giving
generalized information about the case. It referred back to the
Matt Spencer case and how she’d been out of the limelight since
then. It also included her photo taken from her senior year in high
school. Good lord, they couldn’t find something more recent, Kate
thought, cringing at the image. Kate had been experimenting with
her hair and at that time had a chin length cut with bangs—really
not a good look for her. The only consolation was maybe it wasn’t
as bad as printing the pictures from this morning of her braless in
her pajamas. Without looking in the mirror, she only guessed her
hair was a mix of frizz and knots. At the very least, the paparazzi
could have given her enough time to get in the shower and run a
comb through her hair.

Most of the information provided was
attributed to an “anonymous” source. Well, Kate was going to give
this anonymous source an ass whooping. She ran upstairs and grabbed
her cell phone. Thankfully, it seemed as though the media hadn’t
discovered the number yet. She quickly dialed her mother’s cell
phone.

Darlene picked up on the first ring. “I just
saw the paper, honey. I’m on my way home now.”

“There are reporters hanging outside and they
keep calling the house,” she moaned. Then, she began to cry and
found it difficult to speak. She wondered if she could be having a
mental breakdown. The walls felt like they were closing in. It had
taken a long time for her anonymity to return and she was finally
gaining the nerve to maybe start going out again and actually
attending school on a college campus and not over the computer.
Although Franklin was a small town, there had been enough scandals
over the past two years for Kate’s story to almost fade to a
distant memory.

“Katie, calm down. It’s just a news story, it
doesn’t mean anything. It will die down soon, I’m sure of it. I’ll
be home in a few and I’ll let the reporters know we have no
comment. I’ll also tell them to get the hell off our property.”

“Now everyone’s going to know about me and
realize I’ve been lying about not being psychic. The letters are
going to start coming again. What am I supposed to say to these
people? I don’t want to be these people’s only hope for finding
their loved ones and then fail them miserably.”

Tightening her hand over the phone, she began
to wonder if her original promise to run away and change her
identity would be that bad of an idea. Besides her mom, what was
keeping her in Franklin? Her dad left her and the guy she liked
wanted nothing to do with her. When her best friend found out about
her deception, she was certain to be shunned by her as well.

“I’m sorry this has happened and I pushed you
into the case. I thought you could help Cori and that would be the
end of it,” her mother sighed. “I can’t imagine who would have
leaked your name.”

“I have a pretty damn good idea,” Kate
sneered.

***

“Come in,” Jared yelled while pulling his
phone away from his ear and covering the speaker with his palm.

Nikki entered their bedroom, but before she
could speak he held a finger up to silence her. He continued on
with his conversation. “I’m absolutely aware of that, sir and I
apologize again. I’m not sure how this happened.”

After saying a hasty goodbye and ending the
call, Jared turned to face Nikki. He gestured to the phone. “That
was my supervisor. You can imagine how thrilled everyone is with me
right now,” he drawled sarcastically.