Sudden Insight

Impressions and memories. Some of them recent. Others older.

A cute little girl walking home from school by herself. At the movies trying to understand the emotions of a love story. The same girl, sitting in her beautifully decorated room weeping.

Things that would be impossible for him to know, yet he was sure he wasn’t making them up.

And under the thoughts and memories was an aura of danger gathering like a dark cloud around them. Was she going to attack him?

Not likely. They’d met by chance in the middle of a crowd. Or was it by chance? Had someone sent her to ambush him?

Another image leaped into her mind. A woman with dyed brown hair. In her sixties. Walking with a limp. Wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d come to see him.

She was the only one who knew he’d be here.

“Evelyn Morgan,” she breathed.

“What do you know about her?” he asked, hearing the shock and uncertainty in his own voice.

He’d forgotten the people around them. Now he remembered they were standing in the middle of a crowd, speaking in low voices, but they might as well have been alone for all the other people mattered.

The woman raised her chin. “She asked me to meet her tonight.”

“Are you lying?” he demanded.

“Why would I?” she challenged.

Could she lie? After all, he’d pulled the information from her mind.

He held on to that extraordinary thought as he kept his hand on her, drawing her back through the mass of people until they had emerged into a clear space in the middle of the street.

A man in a wrinkled shirt strode toward the hotel. It was Detective Moynihan, whom Jake knew from his work with kids at risk in the city. “Detective,” he called out.

The cop stopped and looked at him.

“What happened?” Jake asked.

“You know I can’t give out any information.”

Jake’s hand was still on the woman. He was close enough to reach out with his other hand and touch Moynihan.

He wasn’t sure why he did it, but as his fingers closed on the detective’s sleeve, information leaped into his mind.

Evelyn Morgan. Lying in a pool of blood, her limp body on the floor of her hotel room.

Jake stared at him, struggling not to let the shock he felt show on his face.

“Got work to do,” Moynihan said and pulled away, making for the hotel, leaving Jake alone with the woman.

“Let me go,” she demanded.

“Not likely.”

When she tried to wriggle out of his grasp, he held on to her, afraid she might run if he gave her the chance. Or was that her thought?

He wasn’t sure. He’d never been less sure of himself in his life. Well, not in years.

He steered her a little way down the street, under one of the balconies that ran along the second floor of the buildings, providing shade during the day and shadows at night. His head was pounding, making it hard to think.

When they were alone, he dragged in a breath and let it out. “What just happened?”

“Evelyn Morgan was murdered.”

“You picked that up?”

“Yes.”

He hadn’t been asking about the murder. That was a given. He was asking about the two of them.

“Will you take your hand off me?” she asked.

“Why?”

“You’re making me nervous.”

He dropped his hand to his side, ready to reach out again if she decided to turn and dash away. At least she looked as confounded as he felt. That was something.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She looked as if she didn’t want to answer, but she finally raised her chin and said, “Rachel Gregory.”

“You have a shop in the French Quarter,” he said slowly as he recalled the mental images. “You read tarot cards.”

She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “You researched me?”

“No. I picked that up from … your mind.”

“Impossible!”

“Is it? Are you saying you didn’t learn anything from me? You’re the … psychic.”

She sighed. “You’re Jake Harper.”

“You got that from my thoughts?”

“Actually, no. From the newspapers. You’re a local celebrity.”

“Oh, come on.”

“What would you call yourself?”