First Visions (17 page)

Nikki shrugged noncommittally and sat down on
the corner of the bed. “I got your text. You said it was urgent I
come over right away.”

She said it like a question and Jared
inwardly groaned as he realized what he suspected was true. He
didn’t know why she was playing dumb. The story about Kate working
on the case was being picked up by all the local news outlets. It
was almost a near certainty reporters would’ve contacted Nikki’s
family for their response to the news. A migraine, slowly built
over the course of the day, threatened to worsen as he looked over
at her. As he watched her examine her nails with a bored
expression, he saw red. Had he really provoked her to this level of
callousness?

“I
assume
you heard Kate Edwards name
was leaked to the press,” he said tightly.

“Yeah, I saw the paper this morning. Is that
the reason you called me here? We are back to discussing Kate?”

“I distinctly remember telling you and your
parents multiple times that Kate’s involvement was supposed to be
confidential.” He felt himself losing his temper and wondered if
another wall would wind up being punched by day’s end.

“What’s your point? I didn’t tell anyone. It
must’ve been someone from the station.” She picked at a hangnail
and looked uninterested at the idea of continuing the conversation.
Seeming to sense his anger and refusal to back down, she demanded,
“What’s the big deal anyway? The press will get over it and move on
to something more exciting than a fraudulent psychic in a couple of
days.”

Jared silently counted to five before
speaking. “The
big deal
is it completely compromises the
investigation. The perp knows we’re using a psychic and she
provided us with a description of him and his car. We don’t know
what could set him off. Who’s to say he doesn’t retaliate and hurt
Cori?”

Nikki gazed at him with wide eyes and he knew
he had struck a chord with her. Her lips trembled and he knew she
hadn’t thought of how her sister could be inadvertently harmed
because of her irresponsibility.

When she didn’t reply, he continued, “What
about my job, Nikki? My supervisors are pissed that the case has
turned into a media circus with a psychic at the center of it. The
paper painted her out to be a con artist. This makes me and the
rest of the department look like bumbling idiots. Not to mention
the call I got today from Darlene Edwards. She’s threatening to sue
me for breaking our agreement about Kate’s anonymity.” He shook his
head at her. Lowering the pitch of his voice, he stated flatly, “I
know it was you, Nikki.”

Without a reply, she turned her head to look
away from him. He remained relentless. “The details in the story
you gave and the timing fits. We have a huge blowout over Kate and
within days her cover is blown. It doesn’t take much deductive
reasoning to figure out you called.”

“What if I
did
? Is it so horrible the
world will be able to see what a huge fake this girl is?” Her tone
dripped with venom and Jared felt a sudden weariness. He’d known
Nikki had a vindictive side, but had always chosen to ignore it. He
should’ve suspected she would go after Kate after she had guessed
Jared was falling for her.

“Yes, what you did is horrible. Your actions
could harm a lot of people, including your sister. I feel
like…you’re a complete stranger,” he said flatly.

“That’s funny, Jared because I kind of feel
the same way about you. You suddenly seem to care less about my
feelings or desires. My
sister
is missing and you’re making
moves on another girl.”

He cut her off. “You know that’s not true.
You can’t use that as justification for what you did.”

“I asked you not to involve her and told you
she wouldn’t be able to help us. Yet, you refused to listen to me
and still consulted with her. And guess what? Cori is still not
home. Most likely, she’s dead,” Nikki choked on the last words and
continued with a strangled voice. “And you’re letting a fraud fill
us with false optimism. Believing in a psychic is like believing in
fairy tales. To be honest, it makes you appear foolish and causes
me to doubt your aptitude to even find my sister.”

“Why couldn’t you trust me?”

“I stopped putting my faith in you a long
time ago when I figured you had no intention of marrying me,” she
said sourly.

Her blue eyes sent him a challenge and Jared
felt a strong divide between them. The reasons for his reservations
over getting married were suddenly bubbling to the surface. How
could he marry someone who thought this little of him?

“Nikki, we’ve only been together for three
years and living together for one. Why do you need to push this so
much? Why can’t you let me propose when I feel the time is
right?”

“Because I know the time will never be
right.” She walked over to him. “I’ve been unhappy for months,
Jared, and couldn’t figure out what it was. Being home with my
parents gave me time to think about everything. I’m tired of
fighting for our relationship. It’s awful the reasons why I’m home
again, but it feels like a relief being away from you. If you have
to constantly fight for something, maybe it’s not right to begin
with.”

He gave her an uncomfortable look and wasn’t
certain how to best respond.

“I think we need…a break. It will give us
time to both get our heads together and revaluate what we want,”
she said with conviction.

“We shouldn’t even be getting into this stuff
right now. Emotions are high and it would probably be better to
discuss things after your sister is found.”

“Jared, come
on
,” she said with
annoyance. “Don’t pretend you’re not feeling the same way, but feel
obligated to stand by me. If you were happy, you wouldn’t be
attracted to someone else,” she explained.

He began to speak, but she covered his mouth
with her palm to silence him. “I’m not going to debate you about
Kate right now. Deny it all you want, but you’ve never been good at
concealing how you truly feel about something. This is why I’m
certain you don’t want to marry me. I know you’re a good guy and
want to do the right thing. However, staying with me out of pity
isn’t the noble thing to do.”

“I never wanted it to be like this. I really
wanted to make things work with you,” he mumbled peering down at
the floor. He couldn’t look her in the face. He had too many mixed
emotions then and he couldn’t discern what his face would
reveal.

“I’ll be fine. I’m tougher than I look.” She
moved her arms around his body and gave him a tight hug. “I know
you’re mad at me, but please don’t give up on my sister.”

“Never,” he swore.

She pulled away and tears began to pool in
her eyes and a glimpse of the Nikki he knew from years ago made a
brief reappearance. With a nod, she left the room and hurried out
of the apartment. Sitting in the same spot for a long stretch of
time, Jared was unsure of how to feel about what had just
transpired. It was glaringly obvious he had made the right decision
when the strongest emotion he experienced was relief.

Kate and her mother spent most of the day
holed up in the den and the kitchen since both rooms obscured them
from the reporters loitering in front of the house. Thankfully, by
the afternoon, all the reporters had cleared out. Kate hoped a more
stimulating event than a psychic working on a kidnapping case would
take her out of the limelight as soon as possible. When her mom got
home, Darlene made it clear to the reporters present that they
wouldn’t be talking to anyone about the case. After a couple of
hours, Kate had plugged in the house phone briefly, but
disconnected the line again when it began ringing off the hook. She
wanted to scour the internet to see if other stories were being
published, but her mother insisted it would be better to remain in
the dark. Who knew what type of skewed facts had been given to the
press?

The highlight was when her mother had called
Jared and tore him a new asshole. She demanded to know why Kate’s
name and picture were plastered all over Franklin. She could tell
by her mother’s end, Jared was contrite, but her mother was hearing
none of it. Before she hung up, she said something like he’d be
lucky to own the clothes still on his back once their lawyers got
through with him.

Her mother looked on the verge of a stroke
which prompted Kate to diffuse some of the tension in the room.
“Mom, maybe I should be flattered I was in that paper. A lot of
girls I went to high school with aspire to be. I mean their goal is
to be the page six half-naked pin-up, but a girl has to start
somewhere.”

“Ha-ha, but tell me seriously, are you
alright?”

“Of course this is far from ideal, but
there’s nothing I can really to do about it now. I’ll deal with the
fallout and hopefully move on after laying low for a bit.”

Her phone chirped. Kate felt nauseous as she
read the text message from Julie.
Is it true what the papers are
saying? I thought we were best friends! How could you keep
something like this from me?

Kate looked over at her mother. “Julie just
sent me a message. She’s mad I didn’t tell her about all the
psychic stuff. What should I say?”

“Tell her the truth. Maybe she’ll understand
why you felt like you had to keep it secret,” her mother advised.
Instead of messaging her back, Kate decided to phone her and air
things out.

Without a greeting, Julie said, “I don’t even
know why I’m picking up.”

Kate continued on despite the chill in her
friend’s voice. “Julie, please don’t be angry. I’ve been meaning to
talk to you.”

“Well, why the hell haven’t you? I have to
find out from everyone else that my best friend is psychic.”

“I’m sorry. I was embarrassed by the whole
thing. I didn’t want you to think I was a freak,” she said
meekly.

“Not good
enough
, Kate. It’s insulting
you think so little of me that you assumed that’s how I would’ve
reacted. Every time someone brought up the old story about you, I
defended you and told them to back off.”

“I wasn’t sure how anyone would react. I
didn’t let a single person know the truth, not even my mother. I
had the vision of Matt and then they kept coming.” Kate persisted,
“You don’t know how hard it’s been not only keeping it a secret,
but witnessing people’s memories and thoughts. I’ve seen things
that’ll haunt me the rest of my life.”

“I knew you didn’t want to talk about the
whole Matt thing, so I left it alone. I never thought in a million
years you were lying and still saw things. I just don’t get if it
was hard on you, why didn’t you come to me? I tell you
everything
.”

It was true, Julie did share everything. Even
things Kate wished she kept to herself—like the time Gage drunkenly
suggested to Julie they ask Kate if she’d be interested in a three
way make-out session. Vomit.

“You have to forgive me, Julie. I promise
I’ll never keep anything from you again.”

Julie let out a lengthy groan. “I don’t know
what to say. I’m not super mad at you, just really hurt you felt
you couldn’t confide in me. I mean how can I say you’re my best
friend when there’s this whole other part of your life I knew
nothing about?” Julie paused.

Before Kate could answer, Julie pressed on,
“Listen, Gage just got here, I’ll call you later.”

Kate sensed the blow off, but said nothing.
She was obviously right and Kate hoped with time she would offer up
absolution. Julie put up with a lot of crap in order to be Kate’s
friend and she prayed this wouldn’t be the last straw.

She hung up and looked at her mother
helplessly. Before she could launch into a lengthy dissection of
the conversation she’d had with Julie, the phone rang in her hand.
“Oh lord, here we go,” she muttered looking at the caller ID.

“Hi Dad, what’s up?” she asked attempting to
use her most chipper sounding voice. She produced an eye roll for
her mother’s benefit.

“What’s
up
? Why don’t you tell me? How
about explaining the reason I’ve received about a dozen calls today
about my daughter, the psychic?” he demanded without bothering with
a greeting. “By the way, your Aunt Irene wants to know if you could
contact your Uncle Larry from the grave and ask him where he put
the keys to their Cadillac.” His patronizing tone dripped with
anger. Kate realized she should’ve known the news would have
reached him one way or another.

“Tell her the keys are in the third drawer of
the toolbox in the garage.” When her Dad did not laugh, she
responded weakly, “Just kidding.”

“Glad you can find anything remotely funny
here. What’s going on? Apparently, you’re involved in some sort of
abduction…”

Kate interjected, “You make me sound like a
co-conspirator.”

“I have no idea what you’re thinking. What
are you gaining by telling these people you know where this little
girl is? Is it money? Are you looking for attention?”

She could imagine how her father looked at
the moment. Salt and pepper hair and blue eyes probably filled with
exasperation. It had been three months since she last saw him and
she wondered if he had changed in that time. Was his paunch more
pronounced? More gray throughout his hair? He had made plans with
her over the past couple of months, but something always seemed to
come up. He blamed it on his investment firm keeping him swamped.
If he was putting off the visit to avoid telling her about Carly,
she should save him the trouble and admit she was already aware of
his girlfriend.

“That’s what you think this is? It never
occurred to you it may only be about me wanting to help
someone?”

“Kate, I don’t fully comprehend what happened
when you revealed where the police could find Matt. There’s
probably a logical explanation we haven’t realized yet.
Nevertheless, you’re not going to sit here and make me believe
you’re psychic. If you were, why wouldn’t you be making millions in
the stock market? Or selecting the correct lottery numbers?”