Read Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery) Online

Authors: Marilyn Baron

Tags: #Contemporary, #Suspense

Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery) (4 page)

BOOK: Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery)
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Katherine shook her head and stared full on into the mirror, bummed when she came face-to-face with a pair of bleary eyes, a rat’s nest on top of her bed head, and a mouth full of cotton behind her faded lips.

“Kate.” More knocking.

“Get a grip. I’m still in here,” she shouted.

Jack might be a police detective, but he had no rights over her here in the air or anywhere. Even if he did have a ginormous gun. She’d seen it up close and personal, even stroked—and was mesmerized by—the gleaming metal while he was asleep. Was it true what they said about men packing big guns? That got her to thinking about stroking something else... Don’t even go there, she thought, banishing those naughty thoughts.

Katherine flushed the toilet, ran a brush through her dark ringlets, touched up her lipstick, and tried her best to smooth the wrinkles from her jeans. She looked like Dracula’s wife. What a mess. Why did she even care how she looked? Jack was the most irritating man she’d ever met. She certainly wasn’t interested in him. He did have a certain animal magnetism. Okay, he was sexy as hell, but she didn’t traditionally go in for the all-brawn-no-brains type. Her ideal mate-meter was malfunctioning. It must be the long flight and the dangerous proximity.

Picking up her purse from the filthy floor, she pulled the knob toward her, unfolding the door, and caught Jack leaning into Shameless Shelby, his flushed face inches from hers.

As Katherine narrowed her eyes, they sprang apart, evidently guilty of some major indiscretion.

“The captain has turned on the Fasten Seatbelt sign,” Shelby said abruptly. “We’re in our final descent, so you two need to get back to your seats.” Then, “See you in Sydney, Jack,” Shelby purred in her irritatingly bubbly voice. She tilted her head and gave Jack a final sultry glance, brushing against him possessively on her way down the aisle.

“Looks like I interrupted something,” Katherine said, allowing her eyes to scan Jack’s body from top to bottom, à la Shelby, and finally returning her gaze to his piercing blue eyes.

“Shelby was...um...interested in my weapon,” explained Jack.

“I’ll bet she was,” Katherine said, smirking. She shook her head, reached into her purse, and tossed Jack his cuffs. Jack caught them easily.

“You and Shelby may need these later,” she said, tightlipped.

“Damn prima donna. If you’re so clairvoyant, then guess what I’m thinking right this minute.”

Jack was more difficult to read, since his head was as thick as a cement block, but she imagined he and Shelby were planning an intimate rendezvous in Sydney. Maybe he’d already copped a feel from the flighty flight attendant, taken a taste of her lips. Who cared if he had? She wasn’t usually the jealous type. Jack apparently found Shelby attractive, in a blonde-bimbo sort of way. Most men would.

Katherine smiled mischievously and spoke slowly, and loud enough for Shelby to overhear. “You’re wondering if we have enough time for a quickie before we land?”

“You are so off base.”

“Am I?” she drawled wickedly, in the sassiest tone she could muster. Katherine tried to negotiate her way around Jack, but he was as big as a brick house, and he grabbed her arm roughly.

Somebody was mad.

“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a major pain in the butt?” Jack said.

“No, you’re the first.”

“Is seeing things that aren’t there part of your psychic talent?”

“Very funny,” Katherine said, continuing to stare at Jack.

“You are more trouble than you’re worth, you know that?”

Unfortunately, most men she’d dated had come to the same conclusion. She wished that just once she would meet a man who could understand her and appreciate her for who she was, psychic baggage and all. It hadn’t happened yet in thirty years.

She had to admit that somewhere under all that shaggy underbrush the guy could be a major hottie. If he would just spring for a haircut.

“The bathroom’s free, if you want to shave. Or you might ask Shelby if she has a pair of hedge clippers.”

Katherine flashed a smile and waved before purposely sashaying down the aisle and settling into her seat, making sure he got a good look at her booty, which she considered one of her best features. If she had to be stuck with this bozo, then she was damn well going to enjoy herself at his expense.

Minutes later, Beauregard—and she would be calling him that as often as possible—slid into his seat and glared into her eyes with his dangerous baby blues.

“I foresee a tirade coming on in the very near future,” she said lightly.

“Don’t give me any of your extrasensory shit.”

“You’re crass.”

“And you’re a quack.”

Katherine pursed her lips and turned away toward the coughaholic in the seat next to her. She covered her mouth and felt her teeth tighten. She was not a quack, and she resented him saying so. His attitude was grating on her already frayed nerves.

“You were saying something about my beard?”

“You look like a Civil War reenactor,” she said, fastening her seatbelt and giving him a cursory glance. “No, one of the seven dwarfs. Goofy.”

“Goofy’s a dog,” remarked Jack as he buckled up next to her, bumping her with his elbow.

“Then Scraggly.”

Jack lowered his voice. “As you well know, I was on an undercover assignment, which is why I grew this beard, before the department sent us to follow our serial killer—or a damn good copycat—to Sydney.”

“It’s definitely him,” she insisted. “He’s not a copycat. The same man who killed those girls in Atlanta is the one murdering them now in Australia.”

“Do we have to have this conversation in front of all the passengers?” Jack whispered. “This is official police business.”

“I think the less we say to each other the better,” Katherine warned. “Just let me do my job so we can go home.”

“To Mr. Psychic?”

Katherine blew out a breath. “There is no Mr. Psychic.” And probably never would be.

“Why not? How come a perfectly presentable thirty-something woman like you is not attached?”

“Gee, you’re generous with the compliments,” Katherine said, brushing back a loose curl from her face. “And I’m not thirty yet. But I’m sure you already knew that. I’m sure you
think
you know everything there is to know about me.”

“I’m an investigator. Investigators investigate.” Jack paused, dipping his eyes down to Katherine’s painted toes and then raising them to take in her breasts.

Her heart stuttered.

“Anyway, I’m curious to find out what kind of man does it for you.”

Katherine sighed, lifting her shoulders. “Something about me seems to scare off the men I date. Maybe I should stop predicting they’re not going to get laid.” She glanced at Jack to gauge his reaction. “Most guys are surprised to learn that my head doesn’t spin around on its axis when I go into a trance. That I’m not possessed.”

“It probably freaks guys out when you tell them you’re a mind reader.”

“I’m not a mind reader, exactly,” Katherine objected and sat back in her seat, pretending to read her magazine. Why should she reveal all her secrets to this Neanderthal? Sure, she could read moods, like anyone in a serious relationship. It was hard to take a guy at his word, though, when, more often than not, she could intuit what he was really thinking, the good along with the bad. But Jack was an enigma. Was he interested in her or wasn’t he? She couldn’t tell.

That was probably just one of the reasons she was the biggest loser in the relationship game. Add Beauregard to the growing list of people, including her parents and her former fiancé, who were mystified by Katherine Crystal. Too bad she didn’t come with an operating manual.

The fact that she could see the future with such horrifying clarity, in such devastating detail, day after day and nightmare after nightmare, meant she could never rest easy and was rarely easy to be around. She accepted that she was different, dateless and lonely, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

She turned to look at Jack. “I’d give anything to be able to walk on a beach and watch the waves crash, and not see a car crashing around a hazardous curve. To feel the warm sand between my toes instead of the fear on the face of a drowning swimmer.”

She wiped the tears from her face and closed her eyes, as she recalled those horrific moments. She held her head and rubbed her eyes as she felt another headache coming on.

Jack looked at her with sympathy in his eyes. His concern seemed genuine. How much should she reveal? Could she take a chance that he was beginning to take her seriously?

“To see a white gull swooping down for his daily catch, instead of a metal bird falling out of the sky, which is exactly how I ended up in this predicament in the first place.”

“Well, you’re the one who called the media,” Jack reasoned. “If you hadn’t, you’d still be anonymous, just another poor little rich girl.”

Katherine held back the urge to slap his face.

The Ocean Rivers case had been her debut onto the national stage. Now she was hunted by the media. Word of her “paranormal powers” had gone viral. Local police departments around the country wanted to hire her. Politicians wanted her to assess their chances with the voters. Who needed pollsters or public opinion polls when they had the “all-powerful, all-knowing” Katherine Crystal?

Katherine felt anything but powerful. In fact, she felt like a failure. Even if she got it right and no one listened, it was a matter of life and death. The truth was, she just wanted to be left alone. No one would guess she’d trade all that notoriety for just a few moments of peace. There were no beautiful sunsets in her world, only tragedies in the making.

****

How could Kate be so sure of herself? She may have the whole world fooled, but he knew, and soon the New South Wales Police Force would know, that Ocean Rivers was just a lucky guess.
Crystal Ball Kate, my ass.

“You’re nothing but a charlatan,” Jack accused. And he intended to prove it.

“A charlatan? Really? Who talks like that?” Katherine flipped her hand as if to dismiss his accusations.

“Would you prefer ‘fake’ or ‘fraud’? Same difference.”

“I don’t want to be here anymore than you do,” Katherine seethed. “I didn’t ask for you, especially not you. If you had listened to me in the first place, Ocean Rivers might still be alive. I don’t need you watching my every move and second-guessing me. There are lives at stake.”

“I know that.” Jack turned to face her. He looked down into her eyes and a lock of unruly hair fell across her forehead, making her seem younger, more vulnerable. He studied her intently.

“Honestly, just between the two of us, up here in the stratosphere, no reporters, no cameras…” Jack lowered his face and his eyes bore into hers, trying to capture the visions floating through her consciousness. “Can you really see things before they happen?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes I get only flashes, brief visions of disasters.” She closed her eyes and looked away. “Earthquakes, floods, drownings. But the plane crash that killed Ocean Rivers plays over and over in my mind even now, and it’s trapped in my head in Technicolor. I relive it every day.”
With the choking clockwork of the Groundhog Day movie.
“I’ve learned to take my premonitions seriously.”

“I wish I had,” Jack admitted, genuinely sorry. “So, how does this psychic thing of yours work? Do you read tea leaves? Tarot cards? Palms? Inquiring minds want to know.” He grew serious. “Humor me.”

Katherine hesitated. “Everyone is psychic. We all have a second sight or sixth sense. You know, the hunches and intuitive feelings we sometimes get. I just happen to be able to channel or tap into a universal spiritual energy field.”

Jack placed his hand on Kate’s face and tipped it toward his. “Can you really see into the future?”

Katherine nodded, letting the warmth of his fingers seep into her soul. “I see into a possible future. If you know what lies ahead, there’s always that chance you could change the outcome.”

Jack dropped his hand. “Like you think I could have done if I’d listened to you about the plane crash.”

“Exactly.”

“How can you be so sure you’re right?”

“Some things I just know. Some things I don’t want to know. But one thing I know for sure. Absolutely everything that is wrong in my life now is your fault.”

****

Jack shifted in his seat and their legs touched, sending shock waves down her body. Katherine feigned disinterest as Beauregard blustered around next to her. His legs were too long, and he was too bulky to fit into his seat comfortably. Understandable, since he was the size of an ox. Of course, he had insisted on the aisle seat, even though that was her seat of preference.

Her real preference had been to sit in first-class, like she was used to, but she was working for the government now—actually two governments, the Cities of Atlanta and Sydney—so the roomy seats, solicitous service, and white tablecloth dinners were just a dream. If this airline even
had
a first-class section.

Katherine buckled up as the plane began its descent into Sydney. She was absolutely beat, out of sorts, and tired of tasteless airplane food, flirty flight attendants, and the stale smell in the cabin. And she was tired of being locked in, of sitting in this same tight spot for almost twenty-four hours, tired of being watched constantly by her own personal guard dog.

Katherine couldn’t wait to get to the hotel. She was dying for a hot shower and the opportunity to relax for a while in her cozy (she hoped) hotel room and enjoy a good seafood dinner from room service. She was up for some tasty Balmain bugs, which Beauregard’s travel guidebook defined as butterfly fan lobsters that thrived in the waters around Australia. Then she was going to hibernate for the evening so she could be refreshed before their morning appointment with the commander of the New South Wales Police Force.

She and Beauregard were definitely not on the same page of the guidebook, or any other book. She sensed he had no intention of lounging around the hotel. Right now, he was probably mentally outlining all the things he wanted to do when he got into the city—starting with a bus tour of Sydney to get acclimated and a stop at Bondi Beach. For a guy who went strictly by the book, that didn’t sound like proper police procedure. How could his mind be on sightseeing when a serial killer was on the loose? She was willing to wager that Beauregard was a country bumpkin, a mama’s boy who had never traveled out of his comfort zone.

BOOK: Sixth Sense (A Psychic Crystal Mystery)
8.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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