Chapter 1
Saturday Night …
“Hey, Queenie, you’ve got a hell of a line outside your tent tonight,” Booker called from the Ferris wheel station. “How come you didn’t see that coming?” And out came his usual full belly laugh at his own joke.
Queenie waved and smiled as inside she groaned. Somehow this teasing never seemed to get old with this group. And the jokes didn’t get any better. At least with the people she worked with here. Then again she was a fortune-teller at an amusement park. She had to expect a certain amount of ribbing.
Still, she did what she could, and, for that, she was grateful to have a job. She finished her ice cream, tossing the last portion of the cone into the garbage. All around her, the noise of the park and the smell of supersticky cotton candy filled the air.
She had to stay focused. This wasn’t for her—this was for someone else. She stepped through the back entrance of her tent. After shrugging off her sweater, she picked up the huge headdress that went with the seer’s role and placed it on her head. Her crystal ball prop was under the table. She put it on the table in front of her. Then she pulled back her chair and sat down. This booth made money. Because of that, the owner paid to keep her around. Not much money, however, but it was easy work, and she got cheap food as a side benefit.
She’d been here, near Seattle in the state of Washington, for several years now. She was footloose, yet a long way from being fancy-free. Life sucked. But it didn’t matter because it was all for the right reason. She leaned across the table and opened the curtains that separated her from her customers. Close to six feet from the tent door, the line had formed, curling to the left. She smiled at the teenage girl standing in front and motioned for her to come forward.
The teen handed over her five-dollar bill. Queenie accepted it with a smile and asked, “What question can I answer for you today?”
“Will I get asked to the prom this year?” She squealed out the question in a breathless voice.
Queenie chuckled inside. “Is there someone in your life already?”
The young woman shook her head. “Not yet. But I’m really hoping you say there will be soon.”
“Let’s find out.” Queenie held out her left hand and said, “Place your hand in mine.”
And then she waved her right hand around the crystal ball. As soon as the young woman’s hand connected with Queenie’s, she smiled. Was there anything fresher than young love? She studied the ball, using it to formulate a story to tell the young woman. The ball was a prop for the people. Queenie could see everything through her eyes right now. She said, “Somebody named Jake, by any chance?”
The young woman cried out again as she gripped Queenie’s hand like a lifeline and did a half jump in joy. “Yes, that’s him.”
“Well then, you needn’t worry,” Queenie said gently, happy she could hand out the good news. “Because he’s going to ask you to the prom.”
The young woman dropped her hand and squealed again, jumped up and down, and then dashed out of the tent.
Queenie smiled and dropped the money into the jar beside her. “Next,” she called out.
A man in a business suit walked in, carrying a briefcase.
She studied him and found nothing unnerving about him, but something was off. He appeared to be calm, maybe too calm. He sat down in front of her and said in a quiet voice, “I’m about to lose everything. Is there anything I can do to help myself?”
Now that was interesting. Rarely did people come with a question of what they could do to turn something around.
He handed over his money and said, “I know this is all fake, but you have a certain reputation. I need some advice. A direction to look in? Something? Preferably good news,” he said heavily. “I could really use a shot of good news right now.”
Interested in spite of herself, Queenie held out her hand and said, “Place your hand in mine.”
As soon as he did, tingles went up and down her back. Now she was very interested. Normally she was good at judging the core character of a person. And nothing about him had set off her inner alarms. She waved her hand over the ball as she tried to sort out the images coming to her. But all she could see were metal bars. And then she realized why he had lost his job. She glanced up at him and said, “Are you trying to find work?”
He shook his head sadly. “No. I thought everything was going great … but then …” His voice trailed away.
“But then?”
“Somebody blamed me for something.” Pain and discouragement were heavy in his voice.
She studied the bars in the ball and realized they were a jail cell. He was in grave danger of going to jail for the rest of his life. She frowned and looked at him. “Do you know somebody named Mike? Mike Marrow or Munro?” She frowned, trying to get the name clearer in her head.
He leaned forward. “Mike Munro, yes, he’s my best friend.”
She looked at him sadly. “He’s not your best friend. He’s the one who framed you. He’s the one who’s guilty.”
The man stared at her in horror. He got to his feet and bolted from the tent.
She dropped his money into the jar. Next thing she knew, three little kids stood before her. They were giggling. One held up a five-dollar bill and placed it on the table. She could see the mom to one—or all—standing in the back. Queenie smiled down at the kids and said, “What would you like to know?”
“What am I going to be when I grow up?”
She held her hand out to the first boy who wore a plaid shirt and cowboy boots.
He placed his hand in hers.
Instantly the answer flooded her mind. She chuckled. “You’ll be a fireman.”
He gasped and raced toward his mother. “Mommy, Mommy. She said I’m going to be a fireman.”
Queenie smiled at the kid’s excitement as a little girl stuck out her hand. “What about me?”
“You will work with animals, little one,” Queenie said softly, seeing images of this girl as an adult, caring for dogs and cats. “I don’t know if it’ll be as a veterinarian or as something else. But your path lies with animals.”
The little girl dropped her hand, stepped away and waited for the third child, a little boy, to step forward. He held out his hand and said, “What about me?”
But his voice was defiant, almost angry, as if he’d wanted to be the fireman, and he didn’t like that his friend had that role. As soon as his hand touched Queenie’s, a shock coursed through her system. And then a cone appeared over his head. She swallowed hard at that sign and said, “Wow, you’re really hard to read. I’m not sure I see anything.”
“You don’t have to. I’m going to be a policeman,” he yelled. “I’m going to hunt down robbers.” He broke contact and raced away, past the adults at the entrance to the tent and roared like a banshee.
She carefully eased her chair backward, and, using some of the antibacterial soap, washed the hand he’d held. It wouldn’t change the fact that the little boy would die—and sometime in the next three days.
She shuddered, hating that part of her talent. The last thing she wanted to know was who would die prematurely. Especially when a child.
So far the cone hadn’t been wrong. She’d seen enough of them to know. She sat back, sipping water from her bottle, trying to calm her nerves.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a spider walk across her table. She looked at it with guarded curiosity. The amusement park was definitely not the cleanest place, and certainly loads of food were here for rodents. But she hadn’t seen much in the way of spiders. She wasn’t afraid of them, but neither did she like them. As far as she was concerned, if they left her alone, then she’d leave them alone.
This one didn’t get the message.
It walked across her table, heading for the fortune-telling ball. She watched, wondering at the odd light around the bug. She saw auras all the time. Rarely around animals though. Never around bugs. But the spider definitely glowed. She smiled at the oddity. “Where are you from?”
Something inside Queenie told her to pick it up. But she hesitated. Just because she wasn’t killing the thing at first sight didn’t mean she wanted it crawling all over her. The spider went up on its back legs, reaching out one of its front legs to touch the crystal ball. A mist swirled deep inside the ball.
And those eyes … How many eyes did spiders have?
The spider speared her with a look she found fascinating. She leaned forward, studying the bulbous critter carefully. Then, unable to help herself, and yet cringing as she did so, she touched the spider. It scrabbled onto the back of her hand.
Instantly images assailed her.
Blood. A woman giving birth. A toddler—a boy. And a name flashing in neon inside her brain—a name she’d never forget: Reese.
Shuddering, she stared at the spider in horror. It stared at her. As if it knew her. As if it knew something about her.
She brushed it off her hand and onto the table and backed away, knocking her chair over in the process, staring at it in horror. “What do you know about Reese?”
Of course the spider didn’t answer. How could it? But it gazed at her with that same knowing look. She shuddered again.
Just then a large man stepped through the tent opening, dragging a young boy with him. The man took one look at her and laughed. “Well, look at this. The fortune-teller is scared of spiders.” He walked over, flicked the spider to the ground and lifted his leg to step on it.
Before he could, she shooed it off to the side away from him. “I’m not afraid of it,” she said quietly. “And I don’t kill anything unnecessarily.”
He snorted. “You’re a charlatan, just like all the rest of the idiots here.”
“No, I’m not,” she said wearily, having heard it all before. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, seeing as how I’m here, you might as well tell me something. I’m trying to acquire a piece of property. A pretty cabin on a lake. Will I get it or not?”
With a sneer he tossed a five-dollar bill on the table. Too many people like this were in her life with the same attitude. Most of the time she could ignore them. This man, however, … had made himself part of her job.
She hated to reach for his hand, but it was necessary in this case, and his closed around hers, holding her tight. And once again images slammed into her. A mountain lake. A cabin with paths up and down to the lake.
And, in the lake, a woman’s face floated just beneath the surface.
Queenie broke contact and sat back down again, holding her hand against her chest, her nerve endings fried, her body already shaking. She didn’t know what the hell was happening. But something was wrong. She gazed at the man and said, “The property owner is dead.”
His gazed narrowed.
Her gut clenched. She should keep her mouth shut. She didn’t need to start anything, … but she couldn’t stop her visions or stop speaking of them. Someone had to. For some reason she saw a whole lot more here than she’d like.
Girding herself for his reaction, in a cold voice she added, “But then you already know that, … don’t you?”
His visage transformed, a black thundercloud forming. “Bitch,” he roared, storming out of the tent and dragging the little boy with him.
Not that it mattered. His face was destined to remain emblazoned in her mind for a long time to come.
But the face from the lake would be there a lot longer. That poor woman had been murdered. And even now floated undetected in the chilly water.
Queenie spun around, grabbed her Closed sign and hung it on the curtain that separated her from the front of her tent, then yanked the curtain closed.
She couldn’t do any more of this tonight. She wasn’t sure what had changed, but, for some reason, her abilities were heightened to a new level right now. And it scraped along her nerve endings to the point where she couldn’t deal with anything. She returned to the table, dropped her headpiece there and picked up her purse.
The spider raced up her arm and onto her shoulder. She involuntarily shuddered and flicked it off. Only it returned to run up her pant leg instead. She danced around, trying to shake it off.
But it was too late.
She’d seen its visions.
Something it knew. Or rather someone it knew.
Then, like a weird echo inside her brain, a tiny voice called out to her. Mommy? Is that you? Where are you?
She froze …
But that couldn’t be. Her son, Reese, had been dead for years now.
Shaking at the unbelievable horror she didn’t—couldn’t—contemplate, yet one that offered hope on a monumental scale … Unable to stop herself, she pulled out her cell phone and the card she’d kept tucked in the back of the phone case for many years. Unable to trust herself to send a text, she dialed the number on the card.
“Hello.”
Her heart slammed into her chest. She hadn’t heard that voice in so very long. She’d loved it once, just as she’d loved the man. Then hated both as her life had been ripped to pieces, and he’d been unable to fix what had happened to her son—their son. Whether he knew it or not.
Finally she found her voice. “Kirk?”
A moment’s pause followed. Then he said with a heavy sigh, “Hi, Queenie.”
Just the sound of his voice had her throat clogging with emotions, her eyes floating in unshed tears.
As her silence lengthened, he asked sharply, “Did something happen?”
She gave a strangled laugh and said, “Yes, but you won’t believe me if I explain.” And she hung up, sagging into her chair, tears burning the back of her eyes.
*
Kirk Sanders slowly placed his phone on the desk. Queenie? After all this time? He tried to think back to the last time he’d spoken to her. It must have been at least three years—or just over? How did one reconcile the passage of time when the first time you heard a person’s voice again was as if time had never passed?
He sat at his desk, letting the comforting sounds move around him, of everyone else’s voices and keyboards clattering in the large room.
Inside he was frozen.
Why had she called? She’d always been tenacious. Almost a bulldog latching onto something and never letting it go. He’d admired that. In fact, he’d loved it. She’d been so driven, and then all hell had broken loose. Her son would be … what? … Five maybe? He’d died at eighteen months. And that had been close to three and a half years ago. Kirk hadn’t even known she’d had a son.
He’d loved her to the bottom of his heart. He’d thought he’d found forever, was willing to do anything to bottle it so he could keep it that long. But, like a puff of smoke, it had all blown up.
Like her crazy abilities—which he’d admired—and how he had defended her and them to his colleagues. She’d been fanatical about acting on her information, but sometimes she expected Kirk to jump when he couldn’t. There was such a thing as needing evidence before picking up criminals. He was a cop and couldn’t go off the reservation or work outside the law. And, when he had been unable to help her with several visions, things between them became strained.
But the Handkerchief Killer case took strained to a whole new level.
That case had blown apart their lives, and they’d separated. Over two years later—a rough two years—he had walked into the station one day to hear she’d been hospitalized. Then he’d heard about her son. She’d never mentioned him, and he’d never asked. And now it was too late for all of them. His heart tugged at the thought of the little boy who’d been so sick. She had done everything she could to help him, but, when they had both collapsed, both were rushed to the hospital, her son dying before she’d ever awoken.
Due to some mix-up with the paperwork, her son’s body had been cremated and buried. And when Queenie had regained consciousness, they’d almost lost her again when they told her the news.
She couldn’t identify the signature on the cremation order—although it was her name. She didn’t remember signing the order, but the hospital staff said she had.
He’d seen the signature. Hell, he even had a copy of the cremation order on his desktop. Something he couldn’t quite let go of. Somewhere along the line something had happened, as if she’d been unable to deal with the grief, so she’d fed on all kinds of conspiracy theories. She even wanted Kirk to open a missing person’s file. He’d tried to explain to her there was no way he could. Her son’s death, although painful, was aboveboard. It had been verified by several attending nurses and the physician. His supervisor, when he’d broached the subject of what to do, had said Queenie needed mental assistance and to recommend she get treatment—at least counseling.
That he had privately agreed at the time wasn’t something he told her. She’d fought him on it for days as he distanced himself further and further. What did one do in the face of such pain? In the face of such disbelief and the high level of fantasy? She wasn’t willing to see his side. How could he possibly see hers? And yet the mystery remained. … Who had signed the cremation order? Queenie refused to believe she’d done it. Even more so, who had buried the remains?
The mystery was just a little too unsettling for him, and he could see how it fed her own psychosis. But, at the same time, he didn’t dare let himself get sucked into it. Unfortunately he’d seen shit like this happen before, way too often.
Maybe somebody had signed it as a good deed, realizing Queenie herself would not likely make it through her own illness. Again, any number of scenarios were possible, but, as far as Queenie was concerned, her son had disappeared from the hospital’s care, and they were ultimately responsible.
And it broke his heart all over again. Because that same devotion, that same focus she’d had on various cases, was now something she was locked on to herself. To stay sane, to have any kind of life, she had to let it go.
“Kirk, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
Startled, he glanced around and looked at Peter, one of his team of detectives. “Hey, sorry. Just got a weird phone call. Tossed me back for a loop.”
“What phone call?” Peter looked at him with a frown. “It takes a lot to shake you. But you sure do look rattled.”
With a quirk of his lips, Kirk said, “Queenie.”
Peter’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. “That’s not just strange. That’s heading into psychotic territory. You stay away from her.”
Kirk chuckled. “I haven’t had anything to do with her for years, and, out of the blue, she calls me.”
“What did she want?”
Kirk said, staring at his monitor moodily, “Nothing. At least she never said.”
Peter asked, with a shake of his head, “She’s still out there, isn’t she?”
“I know. I thought, after all this time, she’d have been better.”
“I think, when mothers head down that path, absolutely nobody can do anything to help them. They see dead children because they want to see dead children.” He smirked. “And, for Queenie, that goes double, as she always sees dead kids.”
“You mean, she sees their spirits,” Kirk corrected. “Because she wasn’t there, she didn’t see him die, see his body afterward, so she has no closure on her son’s death.”
“Hell, when Melissa had a miscarriage,” Peter said with a heavy sigh, “I thought she’d gone off permanently. I can’t imagine what would have happened if she woke up in the hospital to find out her child was gone, and she not only didn’t get a chance to say goodbye but she didn’t even see the body or go to a funeral, … nothing.”
“Exactly. And, because of that, Queenie couldn’t let go of the thought that maybe her son was stolen, maybe somebody did something, and maybe the child was still alive somewhere. But she didn’t say anything about Reese this time. It was a weird call actually.”
“Can’t she contact him with her abilities?”
Kirk nodded. “I imagine she tried. But you know what she was like. She would get all these weird hunches and psychic visions, and sometimes there’d be voices. Sometimes there’d be pictures.”
“Nothing was normal about her visions or her abilities,” Peter said. “I’m not even sure I believe any of that shit.”
“But she did help us close dozens of cases,” Kirk said. It had been phenomenal at the time. When she had information, it was usually good information.
“Not at the end,” Peter reminded Kirk. “It was stuff somebody else could have gotten from a newspaper or something. Hell, maybe Queenie was listening in at the closest coffee shop where the cops hung out and getting tidbits from there.”
Kirk didn’t bother answering. They’d had this conversation before, although not for years. He stared at the number on his phone, jotted it down on a sticky note and stuck it to the base of his monitor. He couldn’t quite let go of the feeling that something strange was going on—and not just with her phone call.
Her voice had been strained, as if some major trauma had occurred. She’d already been through more than most people had. Yet, he also knew that to go down that path, to even pick up the phone and call her again, was to open up a hornet’s nest in his own life, and he didn’t want that either.
“You better stay away from her,” Peter warned. “She’s bad news for you.”
Not much Kirk could say to rebut that. She’d been his everything until she broke down and sent him away. But he hated to look at that time too closely. Nor could he forget about her all these years. He’d kept tabs on her after she had lost her son but always from a distance. Then he’d lost track of her. Every six months his calendar reminded him to do another search for Queenie, to find out where she was, if possible. This exercise kept him somewhat connected to Queenie and also reassured him that she was somehow still okay.
“You know what happened when your last girlfriend found out about Queenie.”
That had Kirk wincing. His ex-girlfriend Lorraine and he had been going out together for over eight months, with her angling for a ring and permanency, when she found out about Queenie after she’d called him. Lorraine had been horrified about her occupation and him by association. They’d broken up soon afterward.
His email dinged with a new message coming in. He clicked on it.
It was from Queenie. He read the garbled note and realized it was about a vision of some kind. But, once again, no names, no dates, no locations. But she also added the description of a woman who owned property on a mountain who was lying cold under the surface of her nearby lake. The property bordered that lake, and some man was trying to take the property and had murdered the woman to get the property.
Kirk sat back and picked up his cup of coffee, his heart sinking.
The trouble was, he had become a cop because he wanted to help. He then became a detective because he wanted to do more. Queenie had abilities that had allowed him to do even more. He had turned down a promotion because he wanted to remain in the field. He didn’t want to manage people. He didn’t want to manage coworkers. He just wanted to do his job.
The others had thought he was crazy. He would get a bigger paycheck, but the job would have been a much bigger headache too. He didn’t deal well with the brass above, and he would have become the middleman between them and the detectives, so not a position he wanted. But he’d been given raise after raise. Not to mention respect and multiple commendations for a job well done.
Yet, no doubt his record of solving cases had eased back because he no longer had Queenie’s assistance.
How sad was that? Most of the guys had no faith in psychics. Except the department knew and worked with a couple who were too good to not believe. Stefan Kronos was one of them. Queenie was another.
He’d asked Queenie about Stefan a time or two, and she’d just given him a blank stare, as if she didn’t know anything about him. Kirk would have thought they had an inside line to each other.
Not knowing how to reply to her current email, he shut it down. His reply would expose a door he didn’t dare open.