Hidden Magic (8 page)

“I suppose that would be okay.” Mrs. Saxon took them upstairs and down a short hallway lined with framed portraits of the girl and a young boy who resembled her.

Jilly stopped in front of a recent photo of Hannah and touched the glass over the girl’s face. She felt nothing but cold stillness. Was Hannah already gone? A lump caught in her throat. No, she refused to go there.

They continued to a spacious bedroom that was strangely neat to belong to a teenage girl, but then again, Hannah lived in a perfect home. A collection of frilly pillows and assorted stuffed animals sat atop a white canopy bed with pink floral linens. The matching dresser and desk held the usual perfume bottles, textbooks and trinkets.

Mrs. Saxon stood at the doorway as if crossing the threshold would destroy her. “I’ll…be in the hall.”

“Thanks.” Zander closed the door, his eyes never moving off Jilly. “Any impressions?”

“Give me a minute.” She took in the crisp white walls. A whitewashed wood shadowbox hung on one wall. Inside were several antique looking beaded purses. The adjacent wall had a set of old fashioned black and white silhouetted women’s profiles.

Jilly thought of the bedrooms she’d had as a child. They never stayed long enough for her to properly decorate her room. Not that they had the money for such things. She used to hang up pages she’d cut from magazines, flowers, landscapes, anything to cover the cracks and blemishes.

She swept her gaze over the room again. “I’d like to touch something of hers, something personal.” She shook off her inhibitions then pulled open the top dresser drawer. Underwear on one side, plastic bins filled with makeup and costume jewelry on the other. She lifted out a pink beaded bracelet and pressed it to her solar plexus as she shut her eyes. Images of the girl flooded her mind.

She was alone, crying. Terrified. He wasn’t who she thought.

The image disintegrated as quickly as it had come. She tried with several other pieces of jewelry but the moment was apparently gone.

“You’re shivering.” Zander’s voice pulled her back to the present. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I saw her. She was scared.”

“But alive?” He stepped closer, his eyes shining with hope.

She hated to let him down. “I can’t be sure. But…”

He grasped her shoulders. “What. Tell me what just happened.”

She recalled the vision. “She has to be alive.”

“Is that wishful thinking or are you basing it on something.” He released her but held her stare.

“I’m not a medium, Zander. Never have been.”

He shrugged. “What does that mean?”

“Mediums channel spirits, dead people. I’ve never been able to communicate with the dead. So Hannah must be alive.” She sank onto the vanity stool and glanced out the window at the bay. A sailboat in the distance skimmed the water. “No, that’s not proof of anything. I can’t be positive my visions are happening in real time or even recently.”

His shoulders sank. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Hannah was hiding from someone she was afraid of, a man.” She thought about Jamal, how she’d cowered in corners, made the Goddess all sorts of promises if only she’d stop him from hitting her. Shaking her head, she forced the memories away and tried to concentrate on Hannah.

“A kidnapper maybe?” An edge of impatience tinged his voice.

She wished she could give him solid answers. But in truth, her vision could have happened moments ago, or years back. She had no real connection with Hannah Saxon since she’d never met her. And their lives were obviously galaxies apart, judging from the upscale home.

Jilly wasn’t only from the wrong side of the tracks, but from the wrong side of the blanket, rather than the perfect home Hannah had grown up in.

She spent a few more minutes touching Hannah’s personal belongings, sitting on her bed and desk chair but nothing seemed to spark any more impressions. Grabbing the bracelet, she faced Zander. “Maybe Mrs. Saxon will let me borrow this. It bears the strongest trace of Hannah’s…essence. She must have worn it often.”

“I’ll ask.” He took the jewelry from her then stepped into the hallway for a minute and he and Mrs. Saxon spoke in hushed tones, nothing Jilly was able to hear clearly.

“What’s going on?” The male voice was louder than the others and definitely didn’t belong to Zander.

“They’ve brought in a psychic,” Mrs. Saxon said. “She’s inside.”

The door pushed open and a tall, thin man with a receding hairline and piercing green eyes looked her over, frowned then shut her inside.

Goddess, please let him accept my help.

“Freedom Moon? Those people are of the devil.” Mr. Saxon’s pronouncement made her shudder. Why did people always associate things they didn’t know with a demonic force?

She held herself back from charging out of the room to set him straight. Most witches practiced white magic. The devil was a purely Christian concoction.

Mr. Saxon had been steeped in his own values and beliefs and they’d never see eye to eye. Her hopes sank with the knowledge that he’d probably insist she not work on the case.

But the image of the girl in danger, frightened and alone was seared on her brain and Jilly knew she’d already crossed a line. She cared what happened to the teenager. With a glance at the closed door, she decided she’d cast a protection spell for Hannah. Later, when she had everything she’d need for it.

Zander came inside with the Saxons in tow. Jilly immediately introduced herself to Hannah’s father but his reception was less than warm.

“I’ll tell you right off that I don’t believe in psychics.” His scowl relaxed slightly. “But we’ll take any help we can to get our little girl back.”

Jilly took his hand and said a silent thank you to the goddess. “I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen as soon as possible. I promise I’ll never lie to you, sir.”

He pulled his hand away then gave her a firm nod and left the room. Jilly’s throat thickened.

“I’m not sure what you hope to find, Miss Livingston. My daughter is a good girl. An A student who goes to church with us every Sunday.”

Jilly swallowed hard. “I’m just trying to get a sense of her, to see if maybe there’s something here that’ll spark a vision for me.”

“We’re God fearing people. It’s hard for us to believe in this…supernatural thing. I think it’s best if you leave now.” Mrs. Saxon pinned her with a pointed stare.

Zander tipped his chin toward the door.

Jilly gave the room a final look, then closed the distance between her and Mrs. Saxon. “I’m just trying to help, ma’am. I hope I haven’t upset you or your husband.”

The older woman’s expression remained guarded and stiff.

Jilly brushed past her and crossed the threshold into the hallway. She thought she heard Mrs. Saxon sniffle and her chest tightened.

Zander stuck close behind her as they headed downstairs. “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Saxon.”

He didn’t say another word until they were back in his car. Leaning his head on the steering wheel, he exhaled loudly. “That went well.”

His sarcasm hit her like a slap if icy morning air. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean to upset them.”

“I know. It’s not you. This case is really getting to me.”

“Maybe if you share some of what you know about it I can help.” She covered his hand with hers hoping to impart some comfort but instead she felt that zing of arousal again. She withdrew her hand.

“We don’t have much but I’ll tell you what I can. Her mother reported her missing a little after two am on April seventh. According the her parents Hannah said she was going to the library to meet a friend. They had some sort of group project.”

“Did she show up at the library?”

“Yes, but she wasn’t there long. She told her friend she was headed to grab a bite but she didn’t say where. The security tapes from the library show her leaving there at seven-thirty-five. That’s the last anyone saw or spoke to her.”

She looked back at the house. The beach was barely visible from the front but Hannah’s room had a perfect view of the waterfront. “There’s a boathouse around back. Do you think we could take a look at it?”

He shrugged then opened his car door. “Why not?”

They took the stepping stone-lined path around the back of the house to the dock. Jilly’s heels clacked along the wood planks. She glanced over her shoulder at the second story of the house and identified Hannah’s room from the pink curtains. Had she imagined someone in the window watching them?

Zander set his hand on the small of her back as they went inside the boathouse. A rowboat bobbed in the middle, flanked by narrow benches on two sides. Jilly rubbed goose bumps from her arms.

“Cold? I was just thinking how stifling it is in here.” Zander brushed aside a spider web.

She touched a life jacket hanging on the wall. “I feel her presence in here. This place means something to her.”

“She and her father used the boat to fish, according to him.”

“Maybe that’s it.” But something left her uneasy. The stagnant air turned her stomach. She crossed the threshold to the dock and sucked in a deep breath. They didn’t speak all the way to Zander’s car.

He let her in then got behind the wheel.

“Is it possible she just ran away?” Jilly asked.

He turned out of the Saxon’s driveway. “We checked out that angle. She didn’t go by bus, plane or train. And we found her car in a lake a few miles outside of town last week. If she did run away, she’d have had to go on foot. Highly unlikely.”

“Where’s her car now?”

He glanced at her then returned his eyes to the road. “One of the state’s crime labs, in Tallahassee. Why?”

“Maybe I could get an impression from the car since that was the last place we know she was.”

He didn’t say anything for better than a minute but she sensed him considering her request. “We’d have to run your fingerprints through AFIS first. Plus, Tallahassee’s almost three hours from here. I’d need a damn solid reason for spending more than six hours of the taxpayers’ money.”

“What’s AFIS?”

“Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Basically a database of fingerprints and criminal history.”

She gripped the armrest. If he ran her fingerprints through the system, he’d know she wasn’t who she said. What if the New Orleans police had a warrant out for her arrest?

No, she couldn’t chance being identified as Lauren. “Maybe you’re right. It’s too far to go for a longshot.” She watched his reaction but he didn’t seem disturbed or suspicious. “Can we go to the lake where her car was found? If she was there I might pick up on something.”

He nodded. “It’s not like I have any pressing leads I’m chasing down.”

She said a silent
thank you
that he’d let the AFIS thing drop.

“I’d like to stop by my office first, though. I need to catch my boss up on my cases. Shouldn’t take but a few minutes.”

“How many cases you have?”

His laugh was part growl that sounded sexier than sin. “Four right now. For now I’m the only detective on the force so between me and the sheriff, we handle everything from credit card fraud to murder. Sheriff Van Horn was a detective for a few years before he got elected so he works with me on the most serious ones like Hannah Saxon.”

Most of her experiences with police stations had to do with her mom. Once when her mother was busted for possession, her boyfriend-of-the-month had dragged Lauren with him to bail her out. She couldn’t have been more than twelve. Then there was that time when her teacher had reported her bruises to the state. The social worker had picked her up and brought her to the station to identify another of her mom’s men as the culprit.

Suddenly her hands were clammy. She wiped them on the legs of her pants. “Mind if I wait in the car?”

“I can’t leave you alone in my county issued vehicle, sorry. I’m a rule follower through and through.”

She detected suspicion in his glance. She mentally smacked herself. If he didn’t start trusting her he might run a background check on her. The sooner she could figure out some way of helping him find Hannah, the sooner she could get the hell out of his life, although the prospect left her cold. But she had to think about her safety as well as Hannah’s.

When they arrived at the county administration building, Zander took her inside. The entrance foyer was the size of her whole cottage. They crossed the marble floor to a set of double glass doors bearing the words, Gulf County Sheriff’s Office.

Uncomfortable heat spread through her but she forced down her fears.

“Want to meet the sheriff?” Zander asked as they passed a reception desk.

“No.”

“No?” His puzzled expression reminded her she had to attempt to make him trust her.

She tried for a self-deprecating smile. “I need to use the facilities. Can you point me toward the nearest ladies’ room?”

“Oh, sure. We just passed one. Back down the hall on your left.”

“Great. I’ll meet you back here after your meeting.” Without waiting for his reply, she spun around and headed to the bathroom. She had half a mind to keep going right out of the building. Yeah, that’d work. Talk about raising suspicion.

No, she had to stay. She was in this for Hannah and she had to see it through.

After taking her time in the restroom then exploring the administration building, she returned to the reception area of the sheriff’s office and took a seat. She pretended to check her messages on her phone, anything to look busy in case Zander poked his head out of the office and asked her to come inside.

She was being paranoid. Just because she was there didn’t mean he’d subject her to being fingerprinted or anything like that.

Zander emerged from his meeting carrying a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Ready to go?”

She said a silent thank you to the Goddess. “Sure.”

“Want some coffee before we leave?”

“No thanks.” She would have loved some but the sooner they left, the better.

He led her out of the building.

“Detective Parsons, have you made any progress in the Hannah Saxon case?” The voice was female but it took Jilly a moment to register that it was a reporter. She hurried toward them from a white van marked with the local news affiliate’s logo. “Hannah’s been missing for almost three weeks now, Detective. Don’t you have any leads?”