Just Intuition (14 page)

Erin caught up to her and rubbed a hand across her back. "Are you ok?" For the first time, she realized that she had not given Allie time to change from her kitty cat pajamas.

"In my dream, I saw her standing there." Allie pointed her index finger toward a spot halfway between the house and the shed. "Right there." She paused until Erin prodded her to continue. "She was wearing a light blue nightie and she was alone." She stopped and clutched at her temple. "I feel a bit sick and I'm getting a headache. I'm going to wait in the truck."

"You stay there while I go check the house." Erin had barely started off toward the house when there was a tiny skittering noise beside the shed. She froze mid-step and waited. There it was again. Could Lily be afraid and hiding? She stepped carefully so as not to make a sound and homed in on the origin of the noise.
The overturned fiberglass canoe. She crept up and, with one hand on the canoe's gunwale and the other holding the flashlight, she flipped it upright in one swift movement.

A panicked flash of white escaped, startling Erin backward. She righted herself in time to watch it thrash an erratic path through the tall grass and into the denser underbrush of the riverbank. She almost laughed out loud in relief and embarrassment. It was nothing more than a frightened jackrabbit. Lifting one end of the lightweight aluminum fishing boat, she peered underneath that as well. There were no other creatures in residence. She returned both boats to their original positions.

Satisfied, she continued to the house where everything was locked up tight. She shone her powerful flashlight through the windows and all appeared perfectly normal. Nothing moved in the yard. With no valid reason to break and enter, she climbed back into her truck.

In the passenger seat, Allie doubled over miserably, clutching her
head. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I was so sure she was here. I thought… Maybe I really am crazy."

"Maybe it was a mistake or maybe she
's already gone," Erin said firmly, "but you are not crazy. She started the engine, turned the truck around and headed out the driveway.

* * *

After the truck's tail lights disappeared, a trap door in the floor of the shed tentatively creaked open, emitting a soft yellow glow. Two small pale hands grappled to prop it up with a stick and Lily emerged, tearing the bottom seam of her light blue nightgown on the latch in her haste. She crawled from the hole, agile as a fox, and plucked at the torn threads.

Dirty bare feet padding on the wood floor, she stepped lightly over to the refrigerator and withdrew a can of beer, popping the tab to take a tiny sip. She opened the metal cabinet and lifted one dark bottle from the top row of unlabeled chemicals. Sloshing the contents back and forth in the half empty bottle, she set it onto the workbench and reached to the rear of the shelf for a Hershey bar. She smiled.
Her secret stash. She replaced the bottle and closed the cabinet soundlessly.

"Wo ist mein Bier?" A guttural voice made her jump and she quickly palmed the chocolate bar.

"Dummkopf! Hurry up and close the door!"

Beer in hand,
candy hidden under her gown, Lily nimbly scurried down the ladder. The yellow glow beneath the floor winked out when she thumped the hatch behind.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was nearly midnight and Allie, still too unsettled to go to bed, snuggled with the cat to watch a classic movie. Exhausted, Erin decided to try to get some sleep. She brushed her teeth, up and down in perfectly straight lines, rinsed her mouth and placed her toothbrush back in its holder. Nail clippers neatly nipped off the corkscrew ends of her singed bangs and she washed them down the drain. Her blistered arms gave her less pain now and she unwound the gauze bandages to examine them. Blisters oozed and she decided she'd better keep them covered a while longer. She rummaged under the vanity for the bandaging supplies and headed down the stairs for Allie's expert help.

Halfway down, she heard voices in the living room. Company?
So late? Was something wrong? She cautiously padded down the hall and was surprised to see Allie slumped in front of her laptop computer. Although Erin had only met her once, she immediately recognized the woman on the other end of the video call. She stopped in the doorway, unsure if she should be invading her girlfriend's privacy.

Allie swiveled around at the sound of footsteps.
"The dreams and premonitions are kind of freaking me out so I told my foster mom," Allie whispered. "We're just talking it through." She pulled over a second chair for Erin, who nudged the stubbornly sleeping feline from the cushion and sat. Erin waggled her fingers at the computer screen and Allie's foster mom smiled warmly back.

"Nice to see you, Erin," Judy said.

"It's nice to see you too," she replied politely. "How is Marcel?"

"He
's good. He's working a lot lately." Judy brushed a hand through unruly bangs and sighed. "He wants us to retire in two years, you know, Freedom 55 and all that."

"That would be nice," Erin said, and Judy smiled.

The pets always gravitated to Allie. Under the desk, she had her toes tucked under Fiona, who sprawled end to end. The dog sighed contentedly.

She discreetly touched a hand to her girlfriend
's elbow and whispered, "coffee?"

Allie answered with a nod, mouthing "decaf," then she and Judy continued talking as if they
'd never been interrupted.

* * *

Allie turned up the computer's volume when the coffee grinder in the kitchen squealed. "I thought it was over." She shouted to Judy above the noise. "Pardon? I said that it's been such a long time that I thought it was all over." She lowered her voice when the grinder stopped. "I'm not sure if I can go through it again." Her shoulders deflated. In the background, the espresso machine hissed while it steamed milk.

The cat hopped up onto the desk, furry body blocking the webcam. Allie smoothed the hair between the cat
's ears and deftly scooped her onto her lap. Wrong Way Rachel circled once and then settled. With her view cleared, she leaned forward toward the screen, as if the proximity was not merely virtual.

"You were always an amazingly strong girl, Alyssa," Judy consoled patiently. "Now you
've grown into a wonderful woman." She paused and took a slow breath. "Do you remember that when you first came to our home, you used to have nightmares every night, and sometimes you'd panic during the day? You wouldn't even ride in a car for three months, and then you wouldn't let us drive on the highway for about a year!"

"And do you remember that stupid psychiatrist who didn
't have a clue?" Allie retorted. She slouched in her chair like a surly adolescent. "He had such an annoying voice and he didn't understand a thing about me."

"Doctor Winkler did have quite an annoying voice," Judy conceded. "And he didn
't see how amazing you are, but do you also remember that the nightmares went away after your sessions with him?"

Allie sat up straight and stared at the image on the computer screen. "I grew out of it! Are you seriously giving him credit for that?"

"Well, it's you who deserves the credit. I wondered if you ever realized that all the hours spent dreaming up ways to ignore his annoying voice helped you learn to control your own extraordinary mind. You taught yourself to focus your thoughts and to block out the disturbing images that plagued your sleep."

Allie nodded meekly, but her body again drooped in the chair, hands propping her chin on the desk. "I don
't even like to think about it. It feels like it's still so close to me. Like there's a specter waiting in my peripheral vision and, if I turn my head to truly see, I'll be terrified all over again."

"When you were young you learned how to block things out of necessity because you needed to grow up like a regular kid. Now you
're an adult and you shouldn't block that part of yourself forever. You might be missing an important piece of who you are. You are exceptionally intuitive and it can enrich your life if you learn to let it."

Allie frowned but she was listening.

"Instead of feeling cursed, maybe you need to consider it a gift. Other kids drew pretty pictures, or were able to spell the alphabet backwards in their heads. You, on the other hand, always knew what you were getting for Christmas, and surprise birthday parties—forget about it!" She laughed and Allie grinned reluctantly. "You found all the neighborhood's lost puppies and kittens and your friends came to you for dating advice because you could always tell them if they were seeing the Wrong Guy. You were responsible for saving a half dozen of your little foster brothers & sisters with your two second warning. Unfortunately, you also were sensitive about bad things that happened and that's what was so hard for you as a small child."

"Two second warning?"

"That's what Marcel & I used to call it." Judy hid a tiny embarrassed giggle. "He figured it out first. He noticed that you'd blurt out something random, and two seconds later it would happen. When he heard you say stuff like that, he'd yell,
Judy! Two second warning! Go check the twins!
You remember those busy three year olds who got into everything? I'd run to their room, and sure enough those little guys had snuck out of bed. I'd catch them plugging the toilet with toys, or trying to climb out the second story window for an adventure. Who knows how many Band-Aids we'd have gone through if you hadn't been around!"

"I do remember," Allie said thoughtfully. "And I remember the time I told you someone needed to go to the neighbor
's house right away but I didn't know why. I had been trying to do my homework but I couldn't concentrate because I kept thinking that the most important thing in the world for me was to hurry and tell you. After I told you, I could go back and get my homework done."

"Yes, I did what you asked and found that Mrs. Christie had fallen and needed to go to the hospital," Judy nodded. "If you hadn
't told me, it might have been even more awful for her."

"I never realized…" Between thumb and forefinger, Allie pulled thoughtfully at her bottom lip.

Erin reappeared beside her and slid a steaming cup of coffee onto the desk. She took Allie's hand and her tone was serious. "What you know is important. You can help people. Gina would have died in that fire if you hadn't sent me."

"I don
't know how to do this," Allie breathed.

"You were only a scared child when you figured out how to block things to protect yourself,
" Judy answered. "Now you are a grown woman with such strength and resilience that I am continually in awe. It's time to stop hiding and believe that you can take control of this gift of yours."

"I have confidence in you too," Erin said, squeezing her hand. Allie stared at their intertwined fingers for a moment and then turned back to the computer screen.

"I'm afraid. What if I'm wrong?" Her forehead puckered. "I was wrong tonight. I thought I knew where to find the missing little girl."

"Sometimes it took a while for you to understand what you sensed, but you were never wrong. You should try again," Judy urged.

"I will. You always know what to say. You've been a good mom." She let that last word hang in the air, and it was a long time before her foster mom composed herself enough to respond.

"You
've never called me that before." Judy dabbed misted eyes with the corner of her sleeve.

"I meant to. I
'm sorry. I should have." Allie terminated the call before her own tears streamed down. She buried her face in Erin's shoulder. Between them, the cat wiggled from Allie's lap and stalked across the desktop. The dog stayed put, guarding her warm feet.

"I need to tell you about my other mom," Allie murmured. "My mom before I went to live with Judy and Marcel."

"Oh." This topic had always been strictly off-limits. She practically held her breath, afraid that, like a wild forest creature, any movement would stop the words that needed to come.

"I never knew my dad," Allie began, edging tentatively into her story. "When I was little, my mom told me that he was a musician. She said they met in Winnipeg when she snuck into a bar with her underage friends. Lee Fisher was barely 18 but already on the road with his band. He was exciting, mysterious and so very unlike anyone she had ever met."

Allie adjusted herself nervously in her chair. "They were young and foolish and he had gone to the next gig before she found out she was pregnant. By then, she understood that she really didn't know much about him so she decided not to tell him about me. He was an Ojibway from Northwestern Ontario and she always told me he was the most handsome guitar player she'd ever seen. She said that I got my good looks from him, because I sure never inherited mom's strawberry blonde hair."

Erin waggled her eyebrows in approval.

"She was still a teenager when I was born, but even though her parents pressured her, she wouldn't give me up. Irish Catholic, they wanted her to marry a nice boy from church. She wouldn't be forced to marry any boy and it got so bad that she ended up cutting off contact with them. She moved to Toronto, finished high school and raised me practically by herself. She always said I was the finest mistake she ever made."

"What a story. Your mom must have been something." Erin leaned closer.

"Yeah," she said. "I used to skip beside her when she walked me to school, and sometimes she would skip too. She was so pretty with her strawberry hair and green eyes. I loved her freckles." Allie let out a protracted sigh. "She was a good mom."

"I like the name she gave you. Alyssa." Erin let the delectable word roll slowly off the end of her tongue.

"I prefer Allie. My mom called me Allie." She let silence hang between them and Erin wasn't sure she would bring herself to continue. Finally, she spoke. "She was like me, or I am like her." She bit back, but the words had already left her lips.

"She knew things?" Erin prompted, and waited. A
half minute ticked by before Allie filled the silence.

"Yes. She was totally unfazed when the babysitter would make a big deal about me knowing things. She
'd just say 'mmm hmm' and pay the sitter. My mom would pick up the phone right before it rang and we'd both run to answer the door before we heard the doorbell. It was like a game and great fun to play with her."

"She knew about people too. She tried to teach me how to tell who was good and who was not, by noticing how it felt when I was near them. That sounds silly, doesn
't it?"

"No, go on." Erin shivered and surreptitiously reached up to scratch the nape of her neck.

"She said something about the air being messed up around the bad people and we could feel it in our skin and our minds if we paid attention." She glanced self-consciously at Erin. "I was six, remember, and I didn't have a very sophisticated vocabulary."

Erin nodded.

"We used to practice at the bus stop. We'd stand by someone and she'd whisper to me, messy or not messy? I'd be very quiet until I could tell, and then I'd smile or frown my answer back to her. She looked so happy when I guessed it right and I really wanted to make her happy."

"My mom finally had enough money to buy a car when I was in first grade. She said it made her feel rich. It was a little red car, I don
't remember what kind, but she drove it fast. She always buckled me up in the back seat and I watched her eyes in the rear view mirror. She felt so far away up there. Then everything went wrong." Allie's body tensed and Erin softly squeezed her hand.

"You don
't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I need to tell someone. I
've never told this to anyone. It's killing me." She looked Allie square in the eye. "And I trust you."

"When you
're ready."

Fiona
's tail thumped on the floor and Allie shielded her face with both hands, like a little girl. "It's my fault," she said in tiny sobs. "I'm the reason my mom died."

Erin
's heart lurched. "You were a child! What could you possibly have done? You must be mistaken."

Wrong-Way Rachel chose that moment to leap onto Allie
's shoulder and she grasped at her desperately, pinning the squirming feline to her chest. She relaxed a little and the cat purred.