Chapter Thirteen
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 might 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 about 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 pajama 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 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 bought 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 in 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 fumed.