Conduit, Page 2

  The handset of the phone matted Emily’s ear against her head. She readjusted it to keep her tiny gold stud earring from putting a hole in the side of her head. Unable to get comfortable, she placed Mrs. Linder on speakerphone.

  Doodles filled the top page of the yellow, legal notepad on Emily’s desk. She flung the tip of her pen onto a blank spot in the corner of the page, leaned back in her office chair, and resumed her random drawings.

  “Mrs. Linder, I appreciate that you want us to continue investigating your husband, but he isn’t having an affair with Francine. There’s really nothing more we can do for you here.”

  “Emily, you’re such a dear, but you are a bit naïve,” Mrs. Linder said. Her shrill voice mixed pity with a hint of condescension, but Emily didn’t take her tone to heart.

  “I will be glad to continue following your husband and try to catch him cheating on you with Francine,” Emily said, ignoring Mrs. Linder’s words, “but after two months, I have not found them together once. The only time they were even in the same vicinity was last Tuesday night when he picked you up from bridge. He barely acknowledged her presence.”

  Cassie Reid popped into the doorway of her office, and Emily looked up. Arms crossed, Cassie leaned against the doorframe. An amused smile played on her lips. “Mrs. Linder?” she whispered.

  Emily nodded and spoke through the speakerphone with her client. “I just hate to take more of your money since we’ve found no evidence your husband is having an affair with Francine, or with anyone else for that matter.”

  Cassie’s eyes widened and she signaled to Emily with wild gestures. Emily translated the frantic charades to mean Cassie wanted her to take Mrs. Linder’s money since she wanted to part with it.

  Emily mouthed the word, “Okay” at Cassie and continued speaking to Mrs. Linder without any change in her tone. “If you would like us to continue investigating, then you can come in and sign an extension to your contract.”

  Mrs. Linder sighed through the phone and Emily detected sadness in her voice. “I was so sure he was having an affair with that...that whore and her new breasts.”

  Emily did her best not to laugh at Mrs. Linder’s abrupt commentary, but Cassie couldn’t contain her laughter. Emily decided to forget about re-signing a contract and instead took on the role of psychiatrist. “Mrs. Linder, may I be frank with you?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “Francine may be eight years younger than you and she may have acquired some recent surgical alterations, but you offer so much more to Randolph than what she could ever give him. You’re a classy lady, and I know that goes a long way with him. You shouldn’t look at your husband being faithful as a bad thing, but use this as an opportunity to renew your affection for him. Consider it a refresher for your marriage.”

  “You are sweet, Emily. Still, you are a bit naïve.”

  Emily rolled her eyes at Cassie, who held a hand over her smiling mouth. “I’ll be sure to work on that, Mrs. Linder.”

  “Now, my psychic said Randolph is having an affair with Francine, and she’s a good psychic. She gets just about everything right. Do you think she’s talking about a future affair?”

  Cassie raised her hand in a good luck wave and disappeared from the doorway. Emily picked up her pen and flipped to a clean sheet in her notepad for another round of nonsensical drawings. “I can’t predict the future for you, but most psychics are not completely honest with their clients.”

  “You mean she’s a sham,” Mrs. Linder said. “It’s okay if you just say that, Emily dear. A lot of people tell me that. I know Randolph gets a bit upset with me when I go see her, but if only you could see what she can do. Why don’t I give her a call for you? I’m sure Madame Zelda can tell you everything you want to know. Maybe she can tell you if there’s a nice man somewhere in your near future. A sweet girl like you deserves a nice man.”

  Emily paused in her doodling to consider the trite name of the psychic, but thought better of any comments. Mrs. Linder believed in her psychic too much to try to convince her otherwise.

  Her pen moved without thought over the notepad. Emily fixated her stare on the winding lines of her computer’s screensaver. They changed colors and shapes on the dusty monitor, hypnotizing Emily with the random designs. “I appreciate the offer, but I think the future is best left unknown and untouched. Why don’t I suspend your case for now? If down the road you find evidence your husband is having an affair, we can pick up the investigation at that point. Does that sound good to you?”

  Mrs. Linder chuckled. “Oh, Emily, you always know what to say to make things right. I may believe what my psychic says, but right now I believe you just a touch more.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Linder.”

  “I really do think she’s referring to a future affair. I’ll have to ask her about that when I see her on Thursday.”

  Emily smiled at Mrs. Linder’s polite stubbornness. “Of course. I’ll put your final bill in the mail today.”

  “And I’ll put your check in the mail as soon as I receive your bill.”

  Emily pressed the speakerphone button on her phone, disconnecting the call. Mrs. Linder might be a little off center from the rest of the world, but at least she paid on time.

  She looked down at her notepad to make a note to have Beverly Anderson, her receptionist and office manager, send a final bill to Mrs. Linder, but Emily stopped before her pen touched the paper. Seated in the middle of the doodles were the words, hear me.

  Emily dropped her pen and the hair stood up on her arms. She lifted the pad of paper and studied the words. The chicken scratch letters slanting to the left did not resemble her typical upright half-cursive, half-print. The distinct E’s in the words were in small uppercase, while the rest of the letters were in lowercase. She recognized the handwriting, having seen it one time before. The same phrase in the same chaotic handwriting had appeared unannounced on another sheet of doodles just last week.

  Since her tenth birthday, when Aunt Susan told her she had the ability to utilize her senses in ways normal people could not, Emily’s talents made her uneasy. Day after day, her mom pounded into her that Aunt Susan was old and losing her mind. Emily leaned away from her mom’s warnings and secretly rendezvoused with her aunt after school for cookies and conversation.

  Aunt Susan explained Emily’s talents to her and told stories of her own abilities. She knew things Emily couldn’t explain, convincing her that their gifts were real. Though the tales impressed her, she didn’t want any part of special talents. She longed to giggle with other girls on the playground, worry about math tests, and complain about unfair parents.

  Emily’s only problem with being like the other kids her age was that she, like Aunt Susan, knew things she couldn’t explain. When she touched Mrs. Wilton’s desk, she knew Ben Saunders stole her plastic apple with the silly worm coming out of the side. The image of her mom sitting in a bar invaded her mind whenever her mom came home late at night and told Emily she had worked overtime.

  During the last twenty-two years of living with her gift, of learning to be around people without allowing their private thoughts to enter her mind, of expanding and focusing her abilities, not once had Emily’s talents included automatic writing. The words in front of her now, in the same handwriting as the message last week, told Emily her talents were leading somewhere new, somewhere she didn’t want to go.

  The words on the notepad jumped out at her again. Emily absently reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a black elastic band. She pulled her honey-colored hair into a loose ponytail, taking a moment to focus on something other than the writing. She leaned her head against the cool leather back of her chair and closed her eyes.

  Her talents came with more problems than she liked. Sensing things she didn’t want and hiding her true self to the world to avoid humiliation both had their share of stress in her life. But the things she didn’t understand, the whisperings she couldn’t explain, made her wish for Aunt Susan
’s quiet explanations over a steaming cup of lavender tea. Then there were the words appearing on her notepad that downright frightened her.

  Emily.

  At the sound of her name, her eyelids lifted. She expected to see Cassie standing in the doorway again, but the hall leading into her office appeared empty.

  Emily frowned and glanced around her cramped office. Everything appeared in its place. Nobody lurked behind the lush houseplant shooting up from the ceramic planter on the floor. The file cabinets appeared undisturbed. No shadows crept across the sensible Thomas Kinkade print on the wall to her right. No reflection jumped out of the decorative mirror on the opposite wall. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Nothing except the words on her notepad that were not in her handwriting.

  She didn’t take coincidence lightly. In her world, coincidence meant something was out of sorts, but she rose from her chair and left her office in search of a rational explanation. The hushed voice that called her name could have been Cassie or Beverly calling from behind a closed door.

  Emily moved down the hall and through the smoked glass door to the lobby of Monroe & Reid Investigators. Beverly stuffed a folded invoice into an envelope and bopped her head to a song on the oldies station. Beverly smiled at Emily. “I’m almost done with these invoices. Did you have any others that you need sent out today?”

  “Mrs. Linder needs her final bill, please,” Emily said. She hesitated and glanced around the lobby. No clients sat on the sofa or in any of the chairs waiting to see her or Cassie. The magazines were tucked into the wall rack. The coffee maker dripped out the last bit of a fresh pot for their early morning clients.

  Beverly had been a wonderful addition to Monroe & Reid last year, Emily reflected. She kept a tidy lobby and an organized appointment book, all while doing to-the-penny bookkeeping. She even watched over young ones without complaint while their parents met with Emily or Cassie. But not once in her year of employment with the firm had Beverly called Emily in any way other than using the intercom.

  Emily frowned and turned back to Beverly. “Did you call out my name a moment ago?”

  “I sure didn’t. I would have used the phone and saved my voice. Maybe it was Cassie.”

  “You’re probably right. Thanks for getting those invoices done, Beverly.”

  “No problem. I’ll get Mrs. Linder’s bill out today as well.”

  Emily smiled and strolled back through the door leading to their offices. She veered left past the conference room and into Cassie’s office. Loud typing greeted her before she walked through the door. The angry clicks of the keys sounded like the product of a rage-filled email, but it signified nothing more than Cassie’s usual method of typing. On the rare occasion when she was upset, her mouse took more of a beating than her keyboard.

  Cassie had the larger of the two offices, part of the deal they made when they started the business seven years earlier. Emily’s last name went first in the company name and Cassie got the larger office with the window. The deal meant nothing more than pacifying them by giving both women something they wanted.

  Larger and livelier than the rest of the offices, Cassie’s space did not resemble a typical workplace. Instead of Kinkade, Salvador Dali’s art graced the office walls. Decked in contemporary furniture, vibrant orange walls, and enough plants to start a small nursery, the office mirrored Cassie’s home décor. Emily considered it a bit extravagant, but the decorating suited Cassie’s boisterous personality.

  Emily pulled out one of the overstuffed chairs in front of Cassie’s desk and plopped down into the plush cushions. “Did you call me a few minutes ago?”

  Cassie paused in her typing and shot a sideways glance at Emily. “I haven’t been on the phone for some time.”

  “No, I mean call me. Like yell out my name.”

  Cassie resumed punishing the keys with fast typing. “Why wouldn’t I have used the phone?”

  Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard my name. Or at least I thought I did.”

  “Beverly always uses the intercom, but maybe it was her.”

  “I asked already. My ears must be playing tricks on me.”

  Cassie spun her chair to face Emily and folded her hands on her desk. “How did it go with Mrs. Linder?”

  “I suspended her case.”

  “But she paid on time.”

  “But her husband isn’t cheating on her.”

  “Alright, you win the moral battle,” Cassie said. She flipped her blonde hair behind her shoulders and settled back in her chair. “Mrs. Linder kills me with her psychic stuff. I don’t know why you didn’t tell her you’re a psychic and her psychic is full of it.”

  “Because she’s attached to her psychic and that’s not a bond easily broken. She needs to believe in something she can cling to. If I told her from the get-go that Madame Zelda is nothing more than a scam artist, she wouldn’t have believed me and we wouldn’t have gotten her case.”

  Cassie choked on her laugh. “Madame Zelda?”

  “There was a psychic on the ten o’clock news last night.” Emily picked up a pen off the desk and twirled it between her fingers. “The news,” she repeated.

  “I know that drives you crazy,” Cassie said.

  “He claimed to be able to connect with the dead and made vague assumptions. Asking if they knew someone who has cancer or died of cancer. Who doesn’t know someone who has had cancer?”

  “What letters did he use?”

  Emily liked to keep track of the initials that entertainment psychics, as she referred to them, used in readings. The psychic would throw out a seemingly random letter, but one associated with the most popular names. The person receiving the reading would connect that letter with the name of a person they knew, erasing skepticism.

  “M and S were his favorites,” Emily said.

  “He played it safe. Without thinking about it, I can name four people I know whose names begin with the letter M.” Cassie paused and did a quick count on her fingers. “Make that five. That’s just first names.”

  “Connecting with the dead. Those frauds always use that one, as if it’s possible to talk to the dead.”

  “Because the dead are dead and the only people you can connect with are the living, even on a psychic level,” Cassie said in a singsong tone. She leaned over her desk toward Emily. “I’ve heard this all before.”

  Emily laughed. She gave the same speech to Cassie way too often. Aunt Susan burned those words into her mind for years, and she couldn’t help but repeat it.

  Emily.

  She stiffened at the sound of her name. Louder than before, the whisper pressed on her brain like the vise grip of an unrelenting migraine. Emily bit down on her bottom lip and lifted her hand to her temple. The reverberation of her name bounced around her mind and singed her nerves. She caught her breath and the whisper let go of her.

  Cassie’s brow creased. “Emily, are you okay?” She leaned across her desk and gently took her arm.

  As Cassie spoke the words, paleness swallowed Emily’s face. The room spun in her peripheral vision and a wave of vertigo washed over her. “I think I need some water.” Nausea gripped her stomach and she laid her hand on her abdomen.

  Cassie got up from her desk without question. Emily rubbed her forehead and focused on calming her queasy stomach. She had never experienced such a physical reaction to a psychic event. Then again, the whole situation confused her. Whispers, automatic writing. Somehow, it must be connected.

  Cassie walked back into the office with a cup of water and set it down in front of Emily. The cold liquid trickled down her throat and soothed her aching mind. Her strength returned, having been stripped from her when the voice took over her mind.

  “What is it, Em?” Cassie asked.

  “I don’t know yet.” A hint of nausea remained with her. She placed her hand on the edge of Cassie’s desk and focused on some papers on the desk to stop the room from swaying.

  Cassie took a deep breath and cross
ed her arms. “But it’s something.”

  Emily didn’t answer. She had read many myths that said channeling spirits caused automatic writings, but one couldn’t connect with the dead because they were dead. Cassie had echoed Aunt Susan’s teachings only a few moments earlier. “The only people you can connect with are the living,” Emily said under her breath.

  Cassie cocked her head to the side. “What’s going on?”

  Emily glanced at Cassie and shook her head. Someone out there used automatic writing to reach out to her, while the intense whispers were also aimed in her direction. If these two phenomena originated from the same person, they really wanted Emily to listen, even if what they had to say scared her.

  Hear me.

  Emily.

  Chapter Two

  A crumpled candy bar wrapper tumbled along the side of Highway 54, just inside the Wichita city limits. The early morning traffic paid no mind to the litter, but slowed to catch a glimpse of the gathering of police cars and ambulances on the shoulder of the highway. No doubt several of the drivers and passengers were on their cell phones, letting others know about the crime scene circus.

  Parked in front of the Medical Examiner’s van, Detective Lieutenant Lionel Edwards leaned against his unmarked patrol car. He tapped his foot on the ground to a silent tempo and mouthed the words of the song that had played in his car a few moments earlier. Watching personnel crawl over the crime scene in the field beyond the bottom of the ditch, Lionel had no intention of joining them until forced to do so.

  He had not wanted to begin his first morning off in a month by leaving Barbara half asleep on a lazy Saturday morning so he could visit a crime scene, but the sixth homicide in ten weeks demanded the sacrifice. Even though he had only planned to sleep late and spend a few hours with Barbara before going into work, he would not experience the luxury of time off with this case.