Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (36 page)

“We should be worried about her, shouldn’t we?” Candice asked me as she eyed Haley
at the cash register.

My radar was sending all sorts of alarm bells about the girl’s safety. My skin tingled
with urgency about the danger I knew she was in. “We definitely should be worried,”
I told Candice. “My gut says Buzz is our unsub, and it also says that Haley is quite
possibly his next target.”

“He’ll set off another bomb?” Candice said, studying my face as if she was looking
for answers there.

I nodded reluctantly. “He’s not done, Candice. Of that I’m positive. And, if he wanted
to grab another victim to wear the next bomb, Mimi’s only friend would be his likely
choice.”

“Okay,” Candice said. “We’ll stay put and keep an eye on her until we can get ahold
of Brice.”

We then sat in the shop the rest of the afternoon, Candice eyeing her phone almost
constantly and Haley waiting on the slow trickle of customers coming in for their
smoothie fixes.

Finally at four thirty Brice called, and Candice headed outside to fill him in on
the important stuff. When she came back in, she said, “He’s on the way. I told him
what you said, and he doesn’t want to take any chances. He’ll bring Haley in for her
own protection.”

I relaxed a fraction. “Good. I’m glad.”

Candice looked over at Haley, who was busy wiping down the counter and occasionally
casting suspicious glances our way. “Poor kid,” she said. “She doesn’t even know what
she’s about to get into.”

“Well, I’d feel bad if I didn’t think we were probably saving her life,” I said.

“True that,” Candice agreed.

My phone rang then and I groaned. It was Dutch. “Hey, doll,” he said, his voice happy
and relaxed. “Just wanted to let you know that we’re all gathering at your favorite
restaurant—Second Bar and Kitchen.”

I bit my lip. Here went nothing. “Yeah, about that…”

“What’s up?”

“Candice and I are working a lead.”

“What lead?”

“I’d rather not tell you.”

There was a pause, then, “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to get sucked back into this.”

“Like you’ve just been sucked back in?”

“Yes.”

Dutch seemed to take that in. “Okay,” he said at last. “How solid is this lead?”

“Crazy solid.”

“You close to solving it?”

“We are.”

“Are you thinking you’ll wrap it up by tonight?”

I traced small circles with my finger on the tabletop. “No. I think it might take
me the rest of the week.”

“Aw, come on, Edgar…,” Dutch grumbled, clearly annoyed.

“I promise, sweetie, the minute Brice and his team grab this unsub, I’ll be home.”

“Hold on,” Dutch said, his voice going hard. “Now you’re not coming home?”

Crap on a cracker. I hadn’t meant to say it like that. “I thought I’d stay at Candice’s
until this thing is over. That way Candice can keep an eye on me and protect me like
she promised you she would.” (I threw that one in there in the hopes that Dutch might
soften a bit.)

It didn’t work. My fiancé didn’t say a word, and I could sense the anger and hurt
coming through the phone.

“Plus,” I added, trying again to make light of it, “it’s bad luck to see the bride
before the wedding.”

Dutch was silent for so long that I thought he’d hung up, but just as I was about
to ask if he was still there, I heard, “Do what you gotta do, Edgar.” And then he
really did hang up.

I
t was hard for M.J. to tell who threw the first punch. It all happened so fast and
the events of that afternoon had been so tense that her brain was slow to process
everything happening around her.

She remembered that Brice and the officer built like a bulldog had approached each
other angrily, and the second that Brice had seen Dutch lying unconscious on the ground
with his hands bound in cuffs, Brice’s face had turned from angry to furious. He’d
barreled into the cop with his chest, yelling at the top of his lungs, and in the
next second the two were exchanging blows. The rest turned into an all-out brawl between
the police and men in dark suits—it was like a Friday night hockey game without the
Zamboni.

Caught in the middle of it was Gilley, who was trapped on the sidewalk next to the
fighting men, and as both teams descended on each other, Gilley got lost in the shuffle.
M.J. could hear him, however—his howler monkey shriek told her that he was in serious
trouble.

Getting to her feet, M.J. ran toward him, weaving and dodging
between the fighting men. “Gilley!” she cried, trying to reach him before he got trampled.
“Gilley!”

His shriek continued until it was abruptly silenced, and that nearly brought M.J.
up short, but she had to keep moving herself lest she be flattened by the shoving
and fighting men all around her.

She wove around a group of four who all had hold of one another so tightly that no
one could raise a fist to punch, and as she rounded them, she suddenly found herself
in the clear. And she also came face-to-face with Director Gaston.

He had hold of Gilley and was helping him into the street, away from the fight. His
eyes locked with M.J. and he nodded at her to come with him. They got to one of the
parked sedans and the director let go of Gil and reached through the open window to
retrieve a bullhorn. Holding it above his head, he hit a button and the air was filled
with a piercing horn.

It mostly did the trick; several of the brawlers broke apart, although they continued
to yell at one another. The director hit the button again, and this time he held it
there until everyone but Brice and the bulldog broke apart. Gaston nodded to one of
his men who happened to be standing near Brice, and he went in and pushed the two
apart, albeit not before getting a sock to the shoulder from the cop.

Candice and Brody appeared at M.J.’s side, and Candice said, “Director Gaston! Thank
God! We believe Abby’s been taken by the bomber. That woman over there,” she added,
nodding toward Margo, “knows his name, sir. We were about to get it from her when
these sons of bitches showed up, and they Tased Dutch!”

Gaston’s face was expressionless, but there was perhaps a flicker of anger in his
eyes. “Is he conscious?” he asked just as Brice limped over. M.J. saw that his right
eye was swollen and his lip was bloody.

“He’s coming to now,” Candice said. “Sir, we have to get to Abby! I think we’ve got
less than twenty minutes before the bomb detonates!”

Gaston was in motion in a second and even though he wasn’t a tall man, he walked with
such authority that every person present seemed to stand up a little straighter. M.J.,
Gilley, Candice, Brice, and Brody all tucked in next to him and hovered protectively
around him as he bent to check on Dutch. “Get them out of these damn cuffs!” Brice
barked to one of the officers, and after a hard glare from Gaston, the officer quickly
moved to Candice’s back and began to unlock her cuffs. M.J. turned toward the officer
when he moved to undo hers, and just then they heard a siren. Looking over her shoulder,
M.J. saw that yet another squad car had arrived on the scene. It screeched to a stop
and out stepped a man in uniform with enough stars on his lapels to be its own constellation.

“Director!” he shouted, running over to them.

The director barely acknowledged him. “Chief,” he growled, as he helped Dutch, who
was struggling to sit up.

M.J. realized that the chief of police had just arrived and she could see every cop
in the vicinity turn suddenly fidgety and nervous. “What the
hell
is going on here?” the chief demanded.

Immediately hands were raised and fingers were being pointed, along with accusations
and barely veiled threats from both the cops and the Feds.

Gaston silenced much of that by standing up and glaring hard at every man present.
He then took the chief by the arm and moved with him a little away to speak with him.

Meanwhile M.J. bent down and with Candice’s help managed to keep Dutch on his feet.
Overhead the sound of a low-flying helicopter made it impossible for M.J. to hear
what the FBI director and the chief of police were saying, but one glance told her
that the chief was receiving a pretty good dressing-down. She wouldn’t be surprised
if he ended up losing a star in his constellation over it.

As the helicopter flew wide, she heard another voice shout something that turned her
blood cold. One of the officers came running over to the chief and the inspector.
A call had just come in, he explained. A woman wearing what a witness described as
a wedding dress and a bomb was currently running along Highway 71.

Next to her, Dutch’s head snapped to attention and with effort he squared his shoulders
and took a wobbly step forward. “Abby!” he gasped. “Jesus! We have to get to her!”

Director Gaston looked from Dutch to Candice to Brice and then his eye traveled to
the helicopter. Turning to the chief, he said, “We’ll need to borrow your bird, Art.”

I
stared out the window of the Jamba Juice at a flock of birds picking at the remnants
of a muffin tossed there by a careless customer. Candice and I had waited for Brice
to show, and then we’d also stayed while Brice gently questioned Haley for nearly
three hours. The interview produced little more information than we’d already managed
to ferret out of her, but at the end of it, we were convinced that whoever this Buzz
guy was, he was our killer.

Haley was then told that the safest place for her would be in FBI custody, and the
poor thing was scared enough to agree to go with Agents Cox and Rodriguez as they
escorted her home to gather some things before they took her to a safe house.

“Think she’ll be okay?” Candice asked me, and I pulled my attention away from the
window to look over at my BFF, who in turn was staring at Haley being helped into
her coat by Agent Cox. I felt a pang in my heart as I watched the young woman. She’d
looked so pale and frightened when Brice had told her about Michelle and Taylor.

“She’ll be in good hands with Cox and Rodriguez,” I said.

Candice sighed. “Yeah, and now that we have a solid lead, I doubt it’ll be long before
we figure out who this Buzz guy is.”

But I wasn’t so sure. I was troubled by how elusive his energy felt—and as close as
I knew we were to figuring out who he was, I had the unsettling feeling that we weren’t
quite close enough.

“I called the manager,” Brice said, interrupting my troubled thoughts. I looked over
my shoulder to see that he’d come out from the back, where Haley’s coworker—who’d
relieved her at five—told Brice he could find Debbie’s phone number.

“Did she have anything to add?”

Brice shook his head. “Got voice mail.”

“She’s been in a meeting all day,” Candice told him.

“We need to talk to her in case she remembers Buzz’s full name,” Brice said.

“Taylor’s dad probably knows,” I suggested.

Brice frowned and shook his head. “I called the team in Dubai overseeing Greene. They
patched me through to him, and he had no idea Mimi was even seeing someone before
she killed herself. He admitted that he didn’t have a close relationship with either
of his daughters, and Taylor never mentioned this boyfriend of her sister’s to him
either. He has no clue who he could be.”

“Dammit!” I swore. Candice and Brice both looked at me expectantly. “Oh, whatever,
you guys! This situation calls for an expletive or two. Plus, Dutch has let me off
the swear-jar hook.”

“Good thing,” Candice said. “You were likely to go broke otherwise.”

I made a face at her and then focused on Brice. “How’d it go with Homeland? Did you
get the case back?”

Brice sighed. “No. Mostly we argued all day about it and we couldn’t get them to agree
to let go of the case.”

“Maybe filling them in about what you learned from Haley will help sway it our way,”
Candice suggested.

Brice rubbed his eyes. He looked tired enough to drop where he stood. “Gaston’s called
for another meeting with them tomorrow. We’ll send a car over to the manager’s place
tonight and see if we can interview her, and if she doesn’t know who Buzz is, then
we’ll lay out our hand to Homeland tomorrow and hopefully it’ll be enough for us to
win the case back.”