New Revelations: Second Sight Book Two (23 page)

Julie didn’t bother to conceal her amusement. “Kate, they did a few
news
stories on you. You’re not exactly trailed by the paparazzi.”
She gave her a long look. “Besides, you’d probably be surprised to find out how Jared feels about you. If you stopped ditching him for the psychic desperate to get into your pants, he would probably tell you.”

“I’
m not ditching Jared for Declan
,
” Kate
snapped. Taking a calming breath, she then added,
“
And Declan has actually turned out to be
tolerable
. I thought he wanted more when he first started hanging out, but he must realize I’m not interested.
Not to mention
he’s dating Trish, the girl that was at your party.”

“Trish puts out for anyone with a p
ulse. I doubt it will last,” Julie
said. Holding up a barely there black thong
with a jeweled studded string
, she questioned, “What about this?”

“Is this
the kind of thing
guys want you to wear?” she
demanded
in scandalized tones.

Julie snorted. “He’s not going to want you to wear the control top underwear you
save for your quote-unquote fat days.”

Checking around to make sure she didn’t see any grandmothers or children that could be traumatized by her underwear choices, she grabbed them out of Julie’s hands. “Fine, I’ll buy these. B
ut just for the record, I doubt I’ll last an hour with these jeweled things up my ass.”

“Kate, if Jared sees you in them, you’ll be lucky to last ten seconds with them still on you,” Julie chided.
Kate blushed over the thought and hurried towards the cash register.

After leaving the lingerie store, they headed towards the food court.
In lieu of lunch, they decided to splu
rge on ice cream sundaes. As Kate
spooned out the last bite, she moaned. “That was so good. It doesn’t
even matter
I’ll probably have to return the clothes we bought and buy a bigger size.”

“
Ugh I know,” Ju
lie agreed. It was nice
Julie humored her. Julie was a size two maybe on a bad day. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask if you heard from Max’s mom.”

Kate was glad she had the ice cream beforehand. Otherwise, she would’ve definitely lost her appetit
e. “Yes. She was
wonderful when she called. I still have visions about Max.
I wake up feeling like I was the one Ally hit.
So I know he’s still haunted by the thi
ngs that happened to him
. Farrah assured me he was doing better everyday and seeing a team of doctors. She insisted I stop blaming myself and even wanted to know if she could give me something for my help.”

“Like money?”

“Yeah I guess so.” She shrugged. “Funny you should bring that up.
Tur
ns out that’s what Declan does—
he helps find the missing and collects any reward money.”

“Kind of
a strange way to make a living,” Julie said and pursed her lips. Shrugging her shoulders, she said lightly,
“
But hey, you said he has a nice car
and house so he must be successful at it
.”

“He asked me to work with him,” Kate admitted.
“
He thinks we’ll be able to handle more cases and have better luck finding people.
Is it a horrible idea? Am I exploiting these families by using my gift to make money?”

Julie smoothed back her hair behind her ears and peered at her.
“Jesus Kate, I’m the wrong person to go to about a moral dilemma. Have you talked to your mother about it?”

She shook her head. “No. I haven’t told Jared about it either. I just explained he wanted to work on Melanie’s case together.
I didn’t tell them it was becaus
e her family is offering up $25,000 for information leading to her return
.
”

“In my
opinion, you shouldn’t feel bad,” Julie stated decidedly.
“
The police officers searching
for her are getting paid, aren’t they? And you’re
probably spending
as
many hours working the case. Besides
, put yourself in the shoes of Melanie’s family. They would probably be willing to give any amount of money to someone who could bring her home.”

“This is going to sound crazy…”
Kate started uncertainly.

“News flash Kate, the majority of the things that come out of your mouth sound crazy,” Julie quipped.

“Well, my mother told me once she believed my second si
ght came from God. And I’m
afraid that if I don’t use it in the right way, something bad will happen,” she confessed
.

“I’m a little skeptical on that one Kate. Would God give Declan a psychic gift?
He may have a heavenly body, but that’s about as close to
holiness that boy will ever be,
”
Julie cracked.

“I guess,” she said noncommittally.

Leaning back in her chair, she smiled at her friend.
A surge of gratitude encompa
ssed her. Julie was the only friend who had stuck around after Kate developed her psychic powers. Many people mistakenly labeled Julie as shallow and conceited. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. Julie was fiercely loyal to the people she cared about, including Kate.

“Thanks for l
etting me vent about this stuff.
If you ever want to talk about how Gage is a Neanderthal who should be worshipping the groun
d you walk on, I’m here for you,
”
Kate kidded.

“You better stop it or you won’t get invited to our future wedding. I won’t have yo
u
yelling ‘I object’ and ruining it,” she laughed.

“Alri
ght.” Kate
put her hands up in surrender. “
This has been fun, but I should be getting home. I wanted to spend some time connecting with Melanie.”

Julie gave her a quizzical look.
“You make it sound like she’s a friend.”

“To be honest, I feel like we’re friends. Her memories are like a breath of fresh air after experiencing th
e horrors Max went through. One memory,
she was teaching a kickboxing class. I woke up feeling like I
actually worked out for the day,
”
Kate explained.

“I hope you or Declan find her soon.”

“Me too,” Kate readily agreed.
“
More than anything I want
Melanie to have a happy ending
.”

The following day Kate headed home after attending her morning classes on campus
.
The night before, she
made arrangements to meet Declan there to discuss Melanie’s case.
He had put together
a compilation of all of their visions of Melanie and
wanted to see if they could reveal
any clues.
Declan wondered if they could find a patter
n that could lead them to Melanie
.
Situated on the couch,
Kate sat for a long time staring off into space as Declan looked over his notes.
Every minute or so, he would make a frustrated sound as he continuously hit a brick wall. Nothing consistent was sticking out to them. They had both gone quiet as their
disappointment
mounted
.

Breaking the silence
of the room, Kate spoke softly.
“I s
aw her reflection in the bathroo
m mirror
the other night
. Is she haunting me now?”

Declan looked up from his notebook.
“Doubtful. I don’t believe
that’s how our powers work. You probably just have her on your mind a lot.”

“S
he’s consuming my every thought,” Kate acknowledged
.
“
A couple of times I woke up and it t
ook me a minute to realize
I wasn’t Melanie. The visions have been that intense.”

He made a thoughtful sound and turned away from her. After the moment of silence stretched out, he gave a tight smile. “I’ll tell you something, but I don’t want you to freak out.” Her mouth opened to reply, but he held up his hand to stop her. “The only reason I’m saying an
ything to you is I want you to consider this a warning. I want you to remember to
keep some emotional distance when you get involved in these cases.”

“Stop being so mys
terious and spit it out already,
”
she said growing annoyed. Declan’s secretive side grated on her. Kate wished he would stop handing out these nuggets of wisdom whenever he deemed her worthy.
She tossed
back her brown hair and stared hi
m
down
.

He relented. “Well, you’re not exactly the first psychic I’ve checked out.”

“And here I was thinking I was special,” she said pressing her hands against her chest.

“Anyway,” he remarked pointedly, “a couple of the psychics I tried to track down were in hospitals.”

“What did they catch? Psychic pneumonia?”
she joked. The smi
le slipped from her face when Kate
saw the tortured look in his dark eyes.

Declan
gave her a solemn look. “They both were diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized.”

“You can’
t be serious? Oh god, this is my destiny
. I’m going to end up locked up in the padded cell with no freaking idea of who I am.” Throwing her arms up, she began to pace the floor in front of him
. A headache formed behind her eyes as she imagined being put away from the rest of her life.

“
Woman
, will you calm down? I feel like I should
have
smelling salts handy,
”
he
quipped.
Declan
reached out and gripped her by the shoulders.
Kate stopped pacing and focused her hazel eyes on the floor.

After a minute, she was able to
regain her poise
.
Kate
gave him a wane smile. “I alw
ays had a fear of going crazy—l
ike I wouldn’t know the difference between my thoughts and others.”

“I reached out to the
families
of
the psychics,” Declan elaborated
,
“and I l
et them know I had the same abilities. In both cases, the psychics became more and more obsessed with their visions. They lost interest in their regular lives and their reality became the people
they interacted in the visions.

“
Melanie and Max can’t consume you to the point where nothing else matters. You have to think of their families as clients and nothing more,” he advised.

“It’s not that easy. Melanie
has been missing for eight days.
Eight days!
” Kate exclaimed and wrung her hands in front of her.
“
It’s like I hear this internal stopwatch counting down and I know the longer she remains missing, the less of a chance we have of finding her alive.”

Declan
moved close to her and cupped her cheek. In a gentle voice, he spoke. “We’ll find her, Kate.”

She tensed at his touch. There were moments where Declan was ab
le to show this softer side—it almost made the psychic amiable. Their similarities were becoming more apparent as well.
They both put up this wall made out of sarcasm and distrust to protect themselves from people who could hurt them. It wasn’t easy
having visions of friends and acquaintances and learning what they really said ab
out you behind closed doors.

For instance, Kate
still didn’t
talk to her cousin Jessica
. In a vision, she had seen her in the middle o
f a gossiping session telling a group of her cronies
that Kate had pretended to be psychic so she could try and seduce Jared while they worked together on the Cori Preston case
.

The tension crackled in the air. She was grateful to hear the garage door open as her mother pulled in
her car
. Declan drifted away from her and sat down on the couch. No witty retort passed from his lips and he gazed at her thoughtfully. Nervously, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and smiled brightly at her mom as she entered the house.

“Hi Mom,” she called.