The Counseling (20 page)

"What can we do?" I ask.

"I don't know. We've got to do something. There's a restless spirit and a family out there that needs closure."

Striking out onto the path, I say, "We've got to tell the counselors."

"I'm right behind you."

We pad through the garden area and up the long staircase. Once inside the main house, we're greeted by a yelping Speedy, growling and snarling at us like we're burglars.

"Calm down, puppy," I say as he wags his fluffy tail at me.

"You'll wake the whole compound," Patrick fusses at him.

Speedy nips at our legs as we make our way into the sitting room of the inn. Chris and Glenn share a bedroom here on the first floor, but I'm not exactly sure where Heidi, Mary, Peggy, and Wisdom Walker sleep.

"Down this hall," Patrick says and leads the way.

Sure enough, there are more guest rooms off the pitch-black hallway. Yet when we knock on a door, no one answers.

"Try the next one," I encourage.

No answer on that one either.

Speedy's guard-dog yapping has awakened the innkeepers. Chris comes out of her room in a flowery bathrobe. "What are you kids doing up this late?"

"We're looking for the counselors," I say.

Chris eyeballs us both and then looks at Speedy, who adds an extra growl. "Now don't go getting hinky on these children, Speedy. Back outside. Shoo!" Chris closes the bedroom door behind her and then flicks on the hall light. "Come out to the kitchen and I'll get Oliver."

I furrow my brow. "Oh, geesh—we didn't want to bother him. Can't you tell us where Peggy and Heidi are?"

"They're ... umm ... not here right now," Chris says. She moves to the coffeemaker and switches it on. "They don't always stay here."

"Oh," I say, dejected. Of course, if they live in the area, it would be silly for them to live here; they probably have families of their own.

"Please get Oliver then," Patrick says.

Soon, Oliver enters the kitchen, dark circles under his eyes from sleep interruption. Patrick and I relay everything we know about Hailey—how she approached us both here, the visions we've had, and how she's pleaded for help.

Oliver scratches his chin with his thumb and forefinger. "Can either of you draw me a picture of her?"

I frown. "I can't even draw stick figures, I'm afraid."

"Me either," Patrick says.

Oliver thinks hard. "I don't remember the ability to draw being in any attendee's dossier. If I had a rendering of her, I could get it out to the authorities and see what we could find out."

Aha!

"I know! My best friend, Celia, is an amazing artist. She can do it."

Oliver cocks an eyebrow at me. "There are plenty of local police forces we could go to who have artists who can—"

"She'll
want
to help, Oliver. Hailey's missing body could be anywhere. We have no idea if it's a local case or not."

"That's true," he says.

"Besides," I say with a knowing snicker, "if I don't go to Celia for help, I'd never hear the end of it."

"Okay, then," he says. "Where is she?"

"She's in Chicago with her family, but I can Skype her on the computer," I say, not even thinking of the hour and the time diff.

"Sounds perfect."

Patrick and I leave Oliver and head back to my room. Without any thought of Jess slumbering away, I snatch on the light and pull my computer up onto the bed. Patrick sits next to me and waits patiently as the laptop boots up. Jess groans and mumbles something, then turns her back to us. That girl could sleep through a tornado, I bet.

The call on Skype goes through to Celia_GhostHuntress, and after five rings, a very disheveled and sleepy Celia appears on the screen.

"Are you effing kidding me, K? It's like one a.m."

"Sorry, Cel! This is an emergency and I knew you'd want to help." I tell her over the webcam what's going on with Hailey. "So, as you can see, I need your drawing services ASAP" The lamp next to Celia's bed comes on and soon she's in full ghost-huntress mode. "Ready when you are."

"Oh, Cel, by the way, this is Patrick Lynn. He's seen this spirit too, so we'll both be describing her to you."

Celia's eyes twinkle a bit and I can read six thousand questions scrolling in her mind like a Wall Street ticker board. "Nice to meet you, Patrick."

For the next hour, he and I take turns telling Celia about Hailey: her features, her outfit, and her hair. Celia's tongue pokes out of her mouth as she puts the final touches on the picture and then holds it up to the screen.

"How's that?" she asks.

"Perfect!" Patrick and I say at exactly the same time.

"How do we get that to Oliver?" he asks.

"Ahhh ... I know. Cel, hold it up to the screen again." When she does, I move my mouse to the top of the screen and click Take Snapshot. "Voilà!"

"That's pretty cool," Patrick says and then smiles. "Great job, Celia. Nice to meet you."

"You too, Patrick," she says. "Umm ... Kendall, you owe me one hell of a phone call."

"Later, Cel. You're the best! Love ya; mean it."

Patrick and I rush back to the main inn with my laptop in tow. Oliver is sipping coffee at the kitchen table and reading a book of meditations. We plug my computer into the printer port in the sitting area where the guest computer is, and the image of Hailey prints out.

Oliver takes the page and studies it; his hands hover over Hailey's features. "I'm getting strong energy from her. While you were right to assume this case could be anywhere, I believe it
is
local and that's why Hailey reached out to the two of you. You definitely have something here." He glances at us. "I'll get this to my connections in the police department and see what we can discover. See if your Hailey here matches any missing-persons cases."

"Thanks, Oliver," I say and then move to return to my cabin.

"Since we're awake, let's stir the whole team and get them on this too," Oliver says as he stands up. "Might as well use all the psychic brainpower we've got here."

"I'll get the girls," I say excitedly.

"I'll get the guys," Patrick echoes.

He walks back with me as we get ready to wake up the whole complex. There's so much I want to say to him, but my thoughts back up like a clogged drain. At my porch, he gazes down on me with those incredible brown eyes of his. I swear he wants to kiss me.

And I want to kiss him back.

He reaches his gloved hand up to my cheek, but pulls away before making actual contact. He shoves his hand into the pocket of his jeans.

"See you in a bit, Kendall."

And with that, he disappears around the corner, leaving me breathless.

T
HIRTY MINUTES LATER,
an unkempt and slightly sleep-discombobulated group sits in the conference room awaiting instructions.

Oliver bounds in with another steaming cup of coffee, excitement simply radiating off him. "I know I called it an early night, but something's come up and I need everyone's help, energies, and abilities. We have some work to do."

Several of my friends moan and groan in their sleep haze.

"Awww, come on, y'all," Harper says. "We're here to learn."

"Exactly," Oliver says. "This is not only a challenge of your collective abilities and enlightenment but a chance to help a family whose daughter has been missing for several months. We may be able to solve this as a group."

"I wasn't asleep," Micah says. "I was just surfing the Web."

"We're here," Peggy announces, and Mary, Heidi, and Wisdom Walker follow her into the room.

"Good, good," Oliver says. "Let's get settled, then."

I grab a Diet Coke from the refreshment table that Chris and Glenn set up and then sit next to Patrick, awaiting Oliver's next directive.

While our host elucidates all the details Patrick and I told him, I try not to be geeked out that Patrick has looped his arm over the back of my chair. This isn't the time for my immense crush on him. It's time to join together as a group to help find Hailey. Like she asked me to do. And like Emily told me to do.

Oliver clicks on an overhead projector, and the sketched image that Celia was kind enough to make appears on the screen.

"Both Patrick and Kendall have had visitations from this spirit while here at Rose Briar Inn. Has anyone else had contact with her?"

Willow raises her hand. "I felt the presence of an owl here. He's been speaking to me. He told me of a teenage girl who was ... lost, but it was so vague, I didn't know what to do with that, eh?"

"Okay, good, good," Oliver says with a nod. "Yes, Harper?"

Harper is slow to speak, then says, "I've been experiencing some crazy empathic feelings."

Oliver frowns. "Did you discuss it with any of the counselors?"

"I did," she says softly. "Peggy, Mary, and I talked about it. I didn't have anything concrete to go on, so we just used it as a discussion. Thing is, though, the pain I've been getting is up here." Harper moves her hands to her neck. "It's definitely a strangulation sensation. No doubt about it."

Patrick and I share a glance. Strangulation?

Talking Feathers lifts his hand high. "Kendall and I talked about seeing a spirit, but we didn't compare notes. I don't know specifics, only that it's a young girl and murder was the cause of her death."

Murder? I wasn't getting anything like that. "Why didn't Hailey tell
me
that?"

Shaking his head, Talking Feathers says, "I can't explain it."

Oliver is obviously very excited. "But wait—there's more." He moves the projector a little bit to the left so he's standing in the middle of the room in front of us. "When Patrick and Kendall came to me with this image, I took the liberty of faxing it to my contacts in several law enforcement agencies that have national databases on missing persons."

"And?" I ask, literally on the edge of my seat.

"Kendall, we got a hit." Oliver grins like a proud parent. Peggy, Mary, and Heidi all clap and exchange whispers.

"That quickly?"

"Like I said, I have ... people."

Patrick nudges me with his elbow.

Oliver continues. "The picture matches the description and photos of a missing teenager from Calistoga, California—north of San Francisco. Her name is Hailey Ann Santiago, and she's been gone for three months. Her last known whereabouts was with a group of friends who went hiking over Christmas break in wine country. All of the friends and family were interrogated, and every one of them had the same story. They dropped her off at home that day and never saw her again. Each one of them passed polygraphs, so the trail went cold and there aren't many more details to date. It's interesting that a girl who comes from northern California and who disappeared there would be showing herself in visions to us here in central California." Oliver pauses to contemplate this for a moment. "I want you all to concentrate on this picture. Use your abilities, whatever they may be, to connect with Hailey's spirit. We want to help the authorities find her body so we can bring closure to her family."

Oliver passes out copies of Celia's drawing of Hailey to us, and I stifle a gag thinking of poor Hailey lost somewhere, decomposing to the point where her family may not be able to identify her. My chest aches like I've got cinder blocks on me at what the girl must have gone through. How could something so terrible happen?

Patrick taps my chair with his foot. "We'll solve this, Kendall. We'll get Hailey home. I promise."

Peggy, Mary, and Heidi fan out around the room and we form small groups. The Puckett triplets set out to connect with Hailey through their clairvoyance, clairaudience, and empathic abilities. Willow and Talking Feathers split off, and I hear Mary instructing them on how to channel Hailey through automatic writing. Evan Christian and Carl pair up to see what they can come up with using a dowsing pendulum. Patrick and I don't move.

Heidi approaches us. "You two must have the strongest connection with Hailey, since you've both seen and talked to her. Perhaps we can meditate together and see if she will come through to you."

"Sure thing," I say. "Whatever we need to do. I have my pendulum. We could do some dowsing too."

Patrick shakes his head. "We need to do more than that, Kendall."

It's clear. We need to lock brains like we've done so many times before and see if two heads are better than one.

Heidi motions to some bulky pillows on the floor in the corner of the room. "Down here, kids. Get comfortable."

We do as she says, facing each other. I reach my hands out to Patrick, knowing we'll get more psychic energy this way. At first, he shakes his head no.

Emphatically, I shove my hands farther toward him. "Patrick, we're connected. You can't deny that. We
have
to do this for Hailey."

He lets out a long sigh and runs his hands through his hair. Slowly, he peels off his leather gloves and sets them in his lap. Then he stretches his hands to me.

"I'll spread some Reiki energy around the two of you," Heidi says.

Neither one of us acknowledges her as we stare into each other's eyes. With a hushed sigh from each of us, Patrick and I join our hands together. An immediate buzz covers my skin, making the hairs on my arms stand at attention. An electric current zaps through me, much like lightning filling the sky. I know he feels it too. There's no denying it from the expression of wonderment on his gorgeous face.

I close my eyes and watch the images that our minds are producing. Neither of us says anything; we just sit back and watch as the mystery unfolds before us. The energy coming from our hands and minds circles us in an invisible ring of psychic power. Things I haven't been able to see on my own—and Patrick hasn't been able to decipher alone—suddenly click into place, like a key in a lock. The vision shifts and settles into lucid images that he and I can both discern.

We're walking through a gate at a national park.

Look at the giant trees,
he points out.
We could be anywhere in California.

We could be anywhere. Period.

No, we're in California.