Gatekeeper (3 page)

“Nope. An officer has already been there. He found a yapping little dog inside. Looked like it hadn’t been let out in awhile if you know what I mean.”

Something was wrong. Really wrong. Amy would never have left Boo alone for that long. She adored that dog.

“Jillian.” Theo was always dead serious when he started a statement with her name. Her gaze met his. Compassion warmed his dark brown eyes. “I have a family. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if something happened to my wife or kids.”

For the first time a lump welled in her throat. Tears stung her eyes. Her mind raced with all the awful possibilities of what could have happened to her sister. She wished he’d stop talking this way. She was going to lose it right here in front of everyone. She fought hard to maintain control.

“I’m not trying to upset you,” he said. “It’s just…I know you’re close to this case. Too close. Normally I wouldn’t allow a relative to be involved with the investigation. But you’ve got a sixth sense about these things. Everybody in the department knows it.”

Jillian already felt the terror rising and this fear didn’t have anything to do with Amy’s disappearance. But then, Amy had never feared her psychic ability the way Jillian had. She shook her head and refused to let the images of the nightmare ghosts into her head.

“You do. You’ve profiled more suspects than any of the other psychologists I’ve used. You’re dead on. Every time. Do you think you can get your head in this and profile the son of a bitch who took your sister?”

Jillian swallowed. Hard. Could she? She gave him a doubtful nod.

She wasn’t like Amy. She wasn’t psychic. She’d put an end to all that after her mother had died—after her mother’s spirit had tried to contact her. Jillian fought hard to chase away the indelible image of her mother’s ghost from her mind.

Panic surged to the surface.

Jillian balked. Where was this uncharacteristic behavior coming from? Usually when she profiled an offender she felt strong, confident and analytical.

But not this time.

This time she felt vulnerable and angry and scared out of her skin.

Her gaze rested on the contents of Amy’s purse once more. Theo was right. She had nailed every case she’d ever worked on. And she was determined to nail this one, to find Amy alive and unharmed.

With resolve, Jillian slipped on a latex glove and bent down to examine the evidence.

Steeling herself, she started with the cell phone. There were no unusual calls. Besides, the crime lab would be checking her phone records. The wallet was untouched. Amy’s deck of Tarot cards was still neatly tucked into a midnight blue velvet bag.

She blew out a sigh.

There’s more, Jillian.

She rubbed her throbbing temples. She was going crazy. The voice in her head sounded strange.
Male
.

She stood. More what? Where?

And then, as if coerced by an unseen hand, she walked several feet toward the woods.

“What are you gettin’?” Theo asked as he strode along behind her.

“I don’t know,” she said—just as the rising sun glinted off something gold and shiny in the dewladen leaves.

Squatting, she squinted and, upon closer inspection, discovered it was an old bronze button with the letters CSA emblazoned on it.

“This is evidence,” Jillian said. “It’s connected to Amy.”

“I’ll get somebody to bag it,” Theo said before he walked away.

Jillian lifted the strange little bronze button out of the gravel and examined it. Her fingers tingled through the glove.
There was something about this button…

She had to feel it—touch it. Her gaze darted to where Theo stood, hands on his hips, talking to the other officers.

Instinctively, she ripped the glove off her right hand. Her heart thudded hard against her rib cage. Theo would kill her for contaminating evidence. But she’d seen Amy do this countless times. It was called psychometry—the art of gleaning psychic impressions from an object.

Her gaze swept the summit of Shy’s Hill once more. No one was watching.

And then, with trembling fingers, she dropped the button into her hand.

A rushing wave of sudden images slammed her.

She could see her outstretched hands, one of which clutched the button. Bangles encircled both wrists. Garish rings glittered on her fingers. The harsh November breeze blew blonde hair across her face. These weren’t Jillian’s hands. This wasn’t Jillian’s dark hair. She was looking through Amy’s eyes! A strange rainbow-colored light encircled her and in the haze, she could see a tall figure. A man. He stared as if awaiting something. His form was somewhat solid but faded into the mist as if he were made of it. Dark, wavy hair framed the strong lines of his face accentuated by a thoroughly piratelike moustache and spade beard. But he was no pirate. Bronze buttons like the one she held in her hand glittered on his gray coat. The silver hilt of a sword glimmered at his belt and three stars twinkled on each side of his collar. He was a soldier, possibly from the Civil War.

Confused and stunned, Jillian fell onto her backside. The button slipped through her trembling fingers and onto the leaf-strewn ground. Her breaths came in ragged gasps. What happened? Who was that man? Why was he dressed that way? What did he have to do with Amy’s disappearance? Jillian’s gaze riveted to the button nestled in the gravel between her knees as stark realization seeped through her veins. The button was the sole link to her sister.

The button—and the ghost of a Civil War soldier.

Chapter Two

Jillian’s heart sank. Did the button belong to the ghost? She shuddered at the thought. But somehow she knew it was the key to what happened to Amy. She
knew
it.

She contemplated picking it up again to see what other images came to her. With a deep breath, she reached for it but then hesitated. What would happen? Would she be thrust into Amy’s perception again? What would the officers do if they saw her in the midst of some sort of telepathic trance?

No. She couldn’t do this here.

She’d have to take the button.

Heart pounding, her gaze flew around the summit of Shy’s Hill. Officers combed the area looking for evidence, talking amongst each other. No one was watching her. Good. She looked at the button once more. Taking evidence was a cardinal sin, not to mention a crime. But would anyone know if she took it? Of course they would. Theo was getting a bag for it right now.

Would it matter if it helped her find Amy?

And most of all, could she face a ghost to find out what happened to her sister?

The details of the nightmare rushed back in a sickening wave. Dread filled the pit of her stomach. She squeezed her eyes shut and debated, but only for a second. Amy’s life was worth any retribution Jillian would suffer—and it was worth facing her worst fear to save her sister. It wasn’t as if she had a choice.

After another quick check to see if anyone was looking, she snatched the button and pushed it into her pocket before any more of the crazy images could engulf her.

One of the officers was heading her way. Jillian’s heart raced.

“Hey, Captain Carter said you’d found some evidence.” He was holding a plastic bag in his hand.

Jillian swallowed. “Yes. I did. But one of the other officers has already bagged it.”

For a moment he looked confused.

“I’m sorry,” Jillian said quickly. “I didn’t know Theo had told you too. I asked that guy over there to bag it for me.” She pointed in the general direction of several officers.

He shrugged. “No biggie.” He turned to walk away and then stopped.

Jillian froze. Paranoia rushed over her in unrelenting waves.

“Hey, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry about your sister. We’ll do everything we can to find her.”

She hugged herself as some of the tension drained out of her body. “Thanks.” But she knew full well the only piece of evidence key to finding Amy was in her pants pocket.

* * * * *

With trepidation, Jillian pulled into the driveway of Amy’s house near Vanderbilt University in an eclectic neighborhood in West End Nashville. The little white billboard brandishing a bright blue palm with a black and white eyeball and faded letters reading
Psychic Readings by Amaranth—Walk-ins Welcome
struck Jillian as foreboding.

The investigators had already combed the house but Jillian thought they might have missed something. Besides, somebody had to take care of Amy’s little black Chihuahua mix, Boo.

She turned the key in the ignition and sat for a moment in the silence of her car. A quick check of her Rolex told her that her secretary should be in by now. She flipped open her cell phone and speed dialed her office. Megan answered after the second ring. “Megan, it’s Jillian.” She searched for the right words. If she told her about Amy she would want to know all the details and right now Jillian didn’t feel capable of explaining it. “I need you to cancel my appointments for this morning. Okay?”

“Gotcha,” Megan’s cheery voice chimed. “Is there something going around? Lynn called in sick today too.”

“No. It’s personal business.”

“Okey-dokey.”

“Thanks, Meg.”

“No problem.”

Jillian snapped her phone shut. Her gaze swept the entrance to Amy’s home. A yard gnome nestled next to a dwarf fir stared back at her from underneath his plaster beard.

Let it all be some sort of misunderstanding. Let Amy be safe inside.

With her office details taken care of, nothing was preventing her from going inside the house. She swallowed and pulled the keys out of the ignition. Her hands shook as she strode up the front walk, fumbling for the right key to Amy’s house. She’d rarely had to use it. Amy had given it to her
just in case
.

Jillian felt sick. Normally this far into a case she would have had an inkling about the kidnapper by now. The sex. The age. A personality profile. But not this time. This time she didn’t have anything—except that button.

With trepidation, she stared at the front door. Already, a neon-yellow ribbon of police tape was stretched across the closed red door. Jillian’s stomach churned as she reached past it to put the key in the lock.

Boo bolted into her arms as soon as the door opened. Jillian clutched the little dog to her chest and hugged the only thing in the world that loved and cared about Amy as much as she did. Boo whimpered along with her as she cried into the short black hair at the nape of the animal’s neck. The dog’s company was strangely comforting in the solitude of her sister’s house.

Jillian’s gaze took in the unconventional living room. The smell of dog and sandalwood incense blended to form a scent that belonged purely to Amy. This was the room where Amy did her readings. An antique wooden card table sat ominously in the center of the room. Two Samsonite folding chairs awaited Amy’s clients. Jillian shivered. It was the table Amy used to do something she called table-tipping, where spirits would answer yes or no questions by levitating the table and tapping once for yes and twice for no.

She shook her head. Who would sit down at that table
wanting
to talk to a ghost? She half expected it to move of its own accord but it didn’t.

Much-used candles of all hues and sizes covered every imaginable surface. Glimmering crystals of rose and lavender quartz sat atop the end tables. Statuettes of saints stood guard from the corners.

A Celtic Cross layout of Tarot cards was spread out on the coffee table in front of Amy’s crimson velvet sofa. Jillian glanced at it. Her insides lurched when she saw the hanging man card right next to the death card. An unwelcome memory of her mother reading cards for clients intruded into her thoughts. She shook her head as if she could shake the thought away.

“That’s bad, Boo.” She held the trembling little dog closer. “Those are bad cards.”

But even as she uttered the words she hated that Amy’s disappearance had dragged her out of her comfort zone of scientific analysis and back into the world of psychic premonitions and—worst of all—ghosts.

At eleven, after her mother’s death, she had made a decision never to delve into the supernatural. She had turned it off the way a person would turn off a faucet and in doing so, she’d severed a bond with her psychic sister she’d never been able to reestablish. “It was for the best,” she whispered and hugged Boo closer. She couldn’t risk losing someone she loved again. She couldn’t risk that terrible, terrible pain. But now it was happening again. Jillian’s world was suddenly spiraling out of control.

The bronze button pressed ominously into her thigh through the pocket of her taupe trousers. And looming in her thoughts was the faded countenance of a ghost. She shivered again and fought down the
knowing
that those little tremors up her spine meant a spirit was near. Was it the soldier?

She looked over her shoulder. The memory of the nightmare surfaced again. She exhaled sharply.

“What was she doing at that Civil War site, Boo?” Jillian asked the dog as if she could answer. “What was she doing with that ghost?” And how did he tie into Amy’s disappearance?