Doom With a View

  Leslie was first tipped off to Bianca’s intention to write the story on Michael’s father when she received a letter from her—later found at the asylum. And I had to think how ironic it was that in this age of instant messaging, e-mail, texts, etc., Bianca had decided to use such an old-fashioned method to reach out to Leslie.

  In the letter, Bianca had clearly been going back and forth with her conscience, and she thought that since Leslie also knew the truth about Michael’s father, Leslie might be able to give her some guidance.

  But Leslie wasn’t the friend Bianca thought she was. It turned out that Leslie had had a major crush on Kyle, who’d actually had a thing for Bianca. It was Kyle who asked Bianca to go get pizza with him when they happened to walk past the Cock Tail. Kyle couldn’t stop talking about Bianca to Leslie all weekend long, as he believed their shared secret would always keep them connected.

  So it was Leslie who suggested that she and Michael abduct and kill Bianca. Michael said during the interrogation that he had taken care of Bianca first, kidnapping and drugging her on her way back from class before driving her up to her favorite vacation spot, where he killed her and hid her in the boathouse.

  When asked why he’d gone to all that effort to take her to her family’s cabin, Michael had shrugged and said that he thought the least he could do before killing her was to remind her of a happier place and time. He actually found it poetic.

  Once Bianca was out of the way, Leslie had gone to see Kyle at Ohio State, faking her panic over Bianca’s disappearance and thinking that she could win Kyle’s sympathies and start up a romance.

  The fly in the ointment to Leslie’s schemes was Michael, who’d grown quite unpredictable. Leslie had let it slip that the other person with Bianca when they’d spotted Matthew Derby at the Cock Tail was Kyle. It was actually Kyle who convinced Bianca and Leslie not to say a word to Michael. He felt sorry for the kid whose mother had committed suicide and had a transvestite for a father. But Michael saw Kyle as a liability. So once Leslie had lured him off campus to talk about Bianca’s sudden disappearance, Michael had drugged and killed him.

  Leslie had then freaked out, so he brought her to the abandoned asylum and locked her in one of the old solitary-confinement rooms while he thought about what to do with her. In the five months that he’d had her there, he’d used her for various experiments—testing out homemade pathogens and viruses on her. The coroner revealed that at the time of her death from a blunt-force trauma to the head, the poor girl was quite sick, and probably would have lived only a week or two longer.

  And that didn’t even cover the fact that, alone, in the dark, and terrified by the constant ghostly activity that surrounded her, Leslie had actually gone quite insane, and as Michael told it, once he knew we were on the trail, he’d felt the need to cut his losses, so he’d killed her too.

  He was planning on burying her in the very place where the last photo of her had been taken, like he’d done for the others. He knew about all those places because the story he’d told us about the conversation overheard by the disgruntled man at the conference was all true—which explained why my lie detector hadn’t gone off and why I hadn’t suspected Michael sooner. The kids had actually had that talk about where their favorite vacation spots were. Leslie, Bianca, and Kyle had said that their favorite vacation spots were where they’d spent time with their families, bonding over games of Scrabble, swimming in the lake, hiking in the hills, or driving a dune buggy over the sand.

  But Michael had no such stories, because his father had never been interested in spending time with him on any level, especially on vacation, and the one time they did go away together, he’d been left alone in a hotel room with the number to room service and the remote for the TV. From an early age the poor, demented boy had been left to fend for himself, and the result had cost three other families a loved one and everyone else the promise of their youthful, intelligent, hopeful minds.

  Dutch, Gaston, and Harrison wrapped up the case and it wasn’t long before I saw a news report that had Senator Derby resigning in shame when all his darkest secrets were finally revealed. I didn’t feel one ounce of pity for him. If he’d extended even the slightest bit of fondness for his son, I was pretty convinced, none of this would ever have happened. I didn’t care if he liked to dress up in women’s clothes, and I didn’t care that many of his more-shady political dealings were being exposed; I cared about how he treated his child. I don’t cotton to people who are cruel to animals and children. Never did, and I never will.

  I saw less of Candice for a while after we got back. She and Harrison spent a LOT of spare time together . . . if you get my drift . . . and she wasn’t in the office much.

  That wasn’t so great for me, because my own business had all but flatlined and I spent a lot of time staring bleakly at my bank balance. The timing couldn’t have been worse, actually, because in with my mail one morning I found a new lease agreement from the office building’s landlord, and to make matters still worse, I discovered that my rent was actually going up.

  When I talked to Dutch about it, he seemed unfazed. “I can spot you whatever you need until your appointment book fills up again,” he offered.

  “Thanks, cowboy, and I know you can,” I said with a sigh. “But they want me to sign another three years, and, Dutch, what if my appointment book doesn’t recover quickly? What if these tough times continue for a while?”

  Dutch wrapped his arms around me and hugged me close. “Then we get through it together,” he said. “You need an office, Abs. It’s okay to sign on the dotted line.”

  But my intuition begged to differ. Every time I took the lease out and uncapped the pen, ready to scribble my John Hancock, my left side grew heavy and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see why I shouldn’t sign it, but my radar practically yelled at me not to.

  Resolving to talk it over with Candice, I decided to take a drive over to my old house, the one she was renting from me—and see whether she was home. As I drove down the street, I noticed two things: One, Candice’s car wasn’t in the driveway, and two, the house right next to mine was up for sale. Not unusual in these parts—a lot of homes were for sale these days.

  I pulled into the driveway, deciding to leave Candice a note on the door, and as I was rummaging around for a scrap of paper, I saw a couple emerge from the house next door, following a woman in a blue blazer. The couple were shaking their heads and talking in a way that suggested they weren’t interested in the property. I got out of my car with the paper and pen I’d managed to find in the glove box, and happened to catch their eye. “Hey there,” I said, being neighborly. They waved back and then I saw the woman from the couple point to my house. She then said something to the woman in the blazer, who looked at me curiously. It seemed they wanted to ask me something, maybe about the neighborhood, so I waited for her to come over. “Hello,” she said, almost shyly. “I’m Cathy Ridge wald. I’m a Realtor for Coldwell Banker.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “Have you lived here long?”

  I smiled. “No,” I admitted. “Actually I only lived in this house a few months before I moved in with my boyfriend. I’m renting it out for the time being to a friend of mine, actually.”

  “Only for the time being?” Cathy asked.

  I sighed. “Yeah, I think my friend may want to buy her own place soon. Hey, maybe I should get your card for her.”

  Cathy’s smile broadened and before I knew it, there was a card in my hand. “Please do pass on my card,” she said. “And if you’re interested in selling this place, my clients over there love the exterior, and would really like to see the inside sometime.”

  That caught me off guard, and I was about to tell her I’d think about it when my radar dinged and I heard Now! in my head. “Is now a good time?” I heard myself asking even before I knew what I was saying.

  “Of course!” she said, and waved the couple over.

  Three hours later I
was holding an offer of purchase in my hot little hand, flapping it in front of Dutch in triumph. “And they love it so much they’re paying me exactly what I would have asked for it!”

  “That’s fantastic, honey,” Dutch said, and I noticed that he didn’t look as happy for me as I thought he should.

  “And I talked to Candice and she’s totally cool with me selling it. She says all she needs is thirty days to find a new place!”

  Dutch nodded, but he still seemed distracted.

  “What?” I demanded. “Why aren’t you excited?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. Something he always did when he was stressed. “I have something to tell you.”

  I immediately sat down. “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “It’s not bad news,” he said with a slight grin.

  “Sure,” I said sarcastically. “You always start out with happy news by saying that you have something to tell me.”

  Dutch came over and sat next to me. “It’s good news and bad news, I guess,” he conceded.

  “I’m sufficiently braced.”

  “The good news is that you were right.”

  “Shocking,” I deadpanned. That won me a chuckle. “What was I right about this time?”

  “Do you remember when you asked me if I was moving?”

  My stomach clenched. “Uh-huh,” was all I could manage to say.

  “I’ve been offered a job.”

  “Where?”

  “Austin.”

  “Texas?”

  “Yes.”

  I couldn’t speak. I’d known in the back of my mind that a massive change was coming to my little world, but not this big. Not that I might lose Dutch to the Lone Star State. “I see,” I said after a long moment. My mouth had gone dry.

  “Hey, now,” he said calmly. “It’s not all bad. I’ve got some other news that might make you feel better.”

  “Do tell,” I said woodenly.

  “Harrison was promoted. He’s the new SAC for the Austin bureau and he’s requested that I come with him. He wants to promote me too.”

  I was quiet for nearly a full minute. “I’m really sorry,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t make me any happier.”

  Dutch broke out into a wide grin. “I’m not done yet,” he said. “There’s more.”

  “Stop toying with me!” I yelled at him. I hated it when he dragged these things out.

  “Harrison wants you there too.”

  I blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”

  “He wants to hire you.”

  I blinked again.

  “Not as an agent,” Dutch explained. “He wants to give you a special title: civilian profiler.”

  I blinked a whole lot more.

  “You’d be working with us on cases,” Dutch went on, “giving your impressions to a field of hand-selected agents that you’d also help train.”

  I added shaking my head to the blinking. “What could I possibly train an FBI agent to do that they don’t already know how to do?” I squeaked.

  Dutch picked up my hand and squeezed it. “You’d train them to develop their own intuition,” he said. “You’d make them better investigators by helping them to trust their own gut.”

  I sank back into the couch and stared at him with my mouth open and big wide eyes. Finally I whispered, “For real?”

  Dutch laughed. “Yes, Edgar. For real.”

  “How much does it pay?”

  “How much are you making now?”

  I frowned. “Bubkes.”

  “It pays only a little more than that.”

  “But we’d have to move to Austin?”

  “It’s an awesome place, Abs. Have you ever been there?” I shook my head. “There’s a great music scene and the winters are mild. It’s a beautiful city with tons to do. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

  “You want to take the job, don’t you?”

  He looked me square in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “But not if it means leaving you behind.”

  My eyes watered and for a moment I was too choked up to speak. My thoughts were tumbling around inside my head and it was hard to make sense of everything that had recently happened. But when I started to assemble the pieces, I was amazed to discover that the universe had been pointing me in this direction for a while now. Dave had already moved to Texas, and I remembered he’d said he was going to be living right outside Austin. Candice had property and investments in the Lone Star State, and I doubted she’d stay long around here if both Harrison and I were down South. She could go anywhere she wanted to now that she was financially secure, and I had a strong feeling she’d come with us if I asked.

  My lease was up at my office. I’d just sold my house. . . . What was really keeping me here anyway? Finally, after giving it some thought and noticing that my right side felt so light and airy that it was hard to deny what my crew thought, I said, “Okay, cowboy. Let’s do it. Tell Harrison we accept.”

  Turn the page for an excerpt from

  Victoria Laurie’s next Psychic Eye Mystery,

  A GLIMPSE OF EVIL

  Coming in September 2010 from Obsidian.

  Just let me state for the record that being the FBI’s “intuitive adviser” (i.e. resident psychic) is not the giant ball of laughs it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes, my friends, it’s a friggin’ train wreck.

  But on April 1 of last year, I had no idea that I was about to be strapped to the tracks as one mother of a locomotive came barreling down the rails straight at me. No, on that day I was actually feeling pretty upbeat; as the bureau’s newest civilian recruit, I felt great about my prospects in my new role.

  I should have known that nothing good ever happens on April Fools’ Day. Still, as Dutch and I had cruised through Dallas on the last day of March, and then past Waco on our way to Austin, I will admit that I could have been overly optimistic because of all the distractions of the massive changes in our lives.

  Toward the end of the year, Dutch had been promoted and reassigned to the central bureau office in downtown Austin, Texas. His boss, Special Agent in Charge Brice Harrison—a man I could not stand for the first month that I knew him—had specifically recruited Dutch and me for the overhaul the Austin bureau was about to go through.

  In the past several months, I’d successfully used my sixth sense to help resolve several of the Detroit bureau’s toughest cases, and Harrison and his superiors had been so impressed that they’d offered me a job. I’d gratefully accepted, both because Dutch really wanted the promotion, and because my income as a professional psychic had been significantly dampened by the downturn in the Michigan economy.

  So after the holidays we’d packed up the house, scouted out a rental down in Austin, and readied ourselves to move. And that’s when my test results came back.

  See, for all positions within the bureau—even those regarded as “civilian”—you must pass a lengthy and difficult interview process along with one incredibly taxing psychological profile test. On this test, which I assume is largely devoted to determining whether you’re a nutcase, they ask you such fun questions as, “Have you ever entertained thoughts of killing your parents?” Ummmm . . . yes? No? Maybe? Hasn’t every teenager at one point fantasized about some giant tornado sweeping their parents off to Oz?

  Anyway, the tests came back indicating that I was sane, (phew! ) . . . but angry.This of course was followed by a rather comedic display on my part of said anger, (hey, I was born feisty, okay?) and a recommendation that I attend anger management classes. Sheesh, some people have no sense of humor!

  But it was the only choice I had; otherwise, bureau policy dictated that I could not be hired. After a lengthy study of my struggling bank balance, dwindling client list, and the sad face Dutch showed me every time I looked as if I would refuse to go to the class, I gave in. Which is why our move was delayed two months, from February 1 to April 1.

  “Yo, Abs,” Dutch said as I stared with concern out the window of his SUV, which had my MINI Cooper hitched behind
it. “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “It’s so stark,” I said, pulling my eyes away from the window. “I mean, I had no idea Texas was so flat.”

  Dutch smiled wisely. “The topography changes just outside of Austin, doll. Don’t you worry; central Texas is almost as gorgeous as you are.”

  I laughed. Dutch was laying on the charm extra-thick these days, mostly, I assumed, because he was so happy I’d agreed to the move. “Yeah, yeah,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” We rode again in silence for a while and I stroked the top of Eggy’s head. Both of our pet dachshunds were in the cab, and I had to admit they had been incredibly well behaved on the long journey from Michigan to Texas.

  “How’re they doing?” Dutch asked as I moved Eggy over into my lap and Tuttle nudged her way closer to my thigh.

  “Really well. But I think we’re close to the edge here. At some point they’ve got to be as sick of riding in this car as we are.”

  “There’ll be plenty of room for them to run around at the house,” Dutch assured me.

  “You swear you loved it?” I asked. Dutch had flown to Texas in late January to look for a temporary rental for us while we decided what part of town to start looking for our own house to buy.

  “It’s perfect for the time being,” he said. “Plenty of room. I promise.”

  I sighed heavily and tried to think happy thoughts. I’d lived in Michigan almost my entire life, and no matter how many times Dutch tried to tell me that Austin was the shizzle, for me, seeing was believing.

  “You nervous about tomorrow?” Dutch said into another stretch of silence.