Lightning Strikes Read online

  Cassie manages a stylish Goth bar downtown. I know, I know, the words “stylish” and “Goth” are usually two words you don’t often say together, but hey, she makes it work. My sister is very beautiful in a dark kind of way. She looks remarkably like Katie Holmes, except taller, with more eye makeup and much darker hair. She helps me out with the inventory and accounting at the shop on her days off, but with her late hours, I try to manage without her. It’s not that running the shop is that difficult. It’s just that my parents feel that if someone can’t afford to buy the things my parents deem are necessary to get by in their day-to-day life, such as colored candles and incense, they call it a discount and practically give the stuff away. So no, my parents can’t be relied on to take complete control over the store for more than one day.

  “Ask Cassie if she can help,” he suggested. “I need you on this full time, Rommy.”

  “Are you going to give me a clue as to what’s going on, or are you trying to see if I’ve added mind reading to my repertoire?” I asked in exasperation.

  “I told you, I’m sending someone over. He should be there soon.” His voice had the graveled sound of someone who smoked too many cigarettes.

  “Who’s coming?” I asked.

  “Detective Nick Cavanaugh. He’s new, so go easy on him,” he groused.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, hanging up the phone.

  Chapter 2

  When I first met Captain Johnson, he was a detective, not a captain. I’d like to think that I helped him into his lofty position.

  Captain Johnson and I have what you would call a symbiotic relationship. I do side jobs for him and the police department, and he doesn’t arrest me. Not that I ever do anything worth arresting me for, but it was a threat he once used when I was seventeen and stupid enough to get involved in a missing-child case he was working on.

  I didn’t mean to get involved. I was minding my own business, driving down the street, heading to my best friend Kelli’s house to watch a movie. As I passed a house on the corner of Sixth and Spalding, I got a flash in my mind of a little boy hiding in a large gardenia bush. I didn’t know why he was hiding, but he didn’t seem afraid.

  Two more blocks down, four police cars and an unmarked detective’s car were parked at the curb. There were two officers at the front door of a neat, white house with blue trim, talking to a frantic woman. The rest, including the detective, were standing at the hood of the unmarked car, poring over what looked to be a city map. I slowed down, not knowing what I should say. When I was level with the unmarked car, the big bear of a detective turned and pinned me with a look that made my palms sweat. I tried for a cocky attitude, which I was not feeling at all, and said to him:

  “Hey, if you’re looking for a little boy in a red shirt, he’s hiding in the big gardenia bush on the corner of Sixth and Spalding.”

  The detective pointed to the curb in front of his car and ordered me to park. He said a few words to the officers looking at the map. They got into one of the patrol cars and took off down the street to where I’d seen the little boy. The big detective stomped over to my car, opened the driver’s side door, and motioned with his hand for me to get out.

  At this point I was getting more than a little nervous. He pointed to the curb and grunted for me to sit.

  “What did I do?” I asked him.

  He ignored me and went back to the officers who were speaking to the woman. One of the officers handed him a radio, and he spoke a couple of words. He then listened to the response and handed the radio back. The patrol car that had left returned bearing the small boy in the red shirt, and the woman shrieked and snatched him up, yelling about how worried she was. The detective left it to the other officers to finish up with the woman, and then he came over to me and sat with a grumble.

  “What’s your name, kid?” he asked me.

  “Andromeda Spencer,” I replied. “Look, I didn’t do anything wrong. All I did was tell you where he was.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin with the palm of his hand. “How did you know where the boy was?” he asked me.

  I knew that if I told this grouchy detective the truth—that a vision of the boy just popped into my head while I was driving by—he’d have me hauled off to the funny farm.

  “I saw him,” I explained. Well, it was sort of the truth.

  “As you were driving by?” he confirmed.

  “Yes,” I told him in frustration.

  He looked at me a long time. Despite his gruff exterior, his brown eyes were kind.

  “You’re that kid who got struck by lightning in Kearney Park last year, aren’t you?” he said, his expression turning soft.

  Busted , I thought. Crap, I was sure people had forgotten about that by now. I hadn’t seen a journalist or television reporter in over six months, and people had stopped asking me, “Aren’t you the girl that got struck by lightning?”

  “Don’t tell me it’s in the papers again,” I groaned.

  “Naw, I was one of the responding detectives that night,” he told me.

  The shrewd look in his eye told me that he’d also somehow heard about my new, nifty talent.

  “You didn’t see the kid with your eyes, did you?” he asked.

  Bingo ! I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what he was going to say next.

  “I’d like for you to help me with a few missing-person cases that I have,” he told me.

  “What kind of missing-person cases?” I said with hesitation. “I don’t want to see any dead bodies.” I gave a shudder of revulsion just thinking about it.

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that,” he told me in an offhanded manner.

  “I don’t know,” I hemmed, thinking furiously of a way to say no.

  “Look, kid,” he began, “you have a gift. You shouldn’t be wasting it. You should be using it to help people.” He could tell the civic duty angle wasn’t working on me. “Think of all of those worried families out there, missing their loved ones—loved ones you could help to find.”

  I gave him points for using the guilt angle, but he really should be taking lessons from my mom if he wanted to reel me in that way.

  “I could arrest you for withholding information,” he said sternly.

  I gave him my patented teenage get real look.

  He blew out a breath in frustration and stood up. “All right, here’s the deal,” he said, towering over me. “We’ll do this on a trial basis. If you’re accurate and I close the case, I will pay you an informant fee, like I do with my other snitches.”

  Other snitches ? I mouthed, not sure whether I should be offended or not.

  “I want extra for dead bodies,” I insisted, knowing that not every missing person he wanted me to search for would be alive and walking around somewhere. My momma didn’t raise any fools. I saw a documentary on TV that said that over half the missing people in the United States would be found dead—victims of a crime.

  “Fine,” he said, running his hand through his short, bristled hair. “This is just between us, though. No one else can know. I’ll be by in a couple of days with some case files, and I want to talk to your parents, too.”

  So began our relationship. I would look at pictures of missing people and try to see where they were. My parents were ecstatic with this arrangement. I was helping the community, so my karma points were way up, and I was getting paid to do it. Now I could help contribute to my college fund, which made my dad the happiest of all.

  I wasn’t very good at finding people at first. Because of the coma, I was delayed in getting my driver’s license and I still wasn’t too familiar with the city streets and addresses. But Detective Johnson was patient, and we soon developed a high rate of closed cases. He was confident that the more I used my ability at finding people, the stronger it would become. He was right. However, neither one of us expected me to see a deceased missing person. Who knew the dead would look just like the living?

  It was stupid, how it happened. Kell
i and I were at the mall, just hanging out at the food court, and who should show up but Detective Johnson.

  “Rommy, you need to come with me,” he said, giving a stern look to Kelli.

  “Uh-uh, I just got this chocolate-dipped cone,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not leaving until I eat it, and quit scaring my friend.”

  He grabbed me up by my arm; the ice cream in my hand wobbled and fell on the floor.

  “Crap,” I said, giving him a glare. “What’s your problem?”

  “We have a deal, Rommy,” he told me with a firm look.

  “Yes,” I replied, “but that deal doesn’t mean you get to bully me.” Just to mess with Johnson for being a bully, I gave the ice cream cone on the floor a sad sigh and let my eyes well with tears.

  “Christ!” he exclaimed. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

  “I really wanted that cone,” I whimpered.

  “I’ll buy you another one later,” he growled. “We have to go.” He started to pull me away again.

  “Wait,” I cried. “I just can’t leave Kelli here without a way home. We came in my car.”

  “She can ride with us,” he said. I could tell he was losing his patience. “I’ll drop her off on the way.”

  Kelli looked horrified at the thought of getting into a police car, even if it was an unmarked police car, and having to explain to her parents why said police car was driving her home. She was shaking her head at me and making negative motions with her hands behind Detective Johnson’s back. I sighed and dug into my purse. I knew she would be pissed at me if I made her ride with us. I pulled out my car keys and tossed them to her.

  “I’ll have my dad bring me to get it at your house later,” I told her. “Don’t wreck it!”

  Without another word, Detective Johnson hauled me away.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him as we sped through town.

  “There’s a pregnant woman who was kidnapped outside of her local supermarket,” he told me as we turned into the parking lot of a Safeway.

  “I need a picture,” I reminded him.

  “We already went by her house and got a picture from her husband,” he said. “Stay here.”

  He got out of the car and walked to the patrol vehicles that were clustered in the parking lot. He met up with another detective, who handed him a manila envelope. I cracked the window to find out what they were talking about. He said I had to stay in the car, but he didn’t say I couldn’t listen.

  “They forced her into her own car,” the other detective was saying. “We’re taking the witnesses’ statements, but it looks as if she was just getting out of her car to go into the store when a man and a woman grabbed her and pushed her back into the vehicle. We have about five witnesses who saw the whole thing happen.”

  Detective Johnson said something that I couldn’t make out and walked back to his car. I, of course, pretended as though I hadn’t been eavesdropping. He got in and handed the envelope to me. I pulled out a couple of snapshots and a five-by-seven glossy of an attractive, redheaded woman. I tried to concentrate on the glossy, but the activity outside of the car was distracting. I glanced around the parking lot and spotted a woman who had a remarkable resemblance to the one in the picture. I looked back and forth from the woman to the picture several times to be sure. I smacked Detective Johnson a couple of times on the arm with the back of my hand to get his attention.

  “Your lady must have gotten away from the bad guys,” I informed him. “She’s standing right over there.”

  He looked up to where I was pointing. “Quit screwing around, Rommy.”

  “I’m not screwing around,” I said in exasperation. “She’s standing right there.”

  “Where?” he said, and squinted as he looked around.

  “There! There, by the shopping cart,” I said, and pointed.

  “Rommy, there is no one there.” He gave me an odd look. He knew I wasn’t messing with him. I might do that from time to time, but not when it came to something as important as a missing person.

  “Oh my God,” I sputtered in frustration. “Some detective you are.”

  I got out of the car and stomped my way over to the woman.

  “Lady,” I told her, “what are you just standing here for? All these cops are looking for you. Go talk to them.

  “I tried,” she cried. “They can’t see me. My baby, they need to find my baby.” She turned back to the officers, wringing her hands.

  I stood there and watched her. Then it dawned on me what I was looking at. “Crap!” I said as I started seeing little spots dancing before my eyes. Detective Johnson managed to reach my side and catch me before I went face-first into the concrete.

  “What’s wrong, kid?” he asked as he dragged me over to a cement planter and lowered me down to sit on it. He pushed my head between my legs. It took a couple of minutes for the spots to fade, but then my teeth started chattering. He waved a patrol officer over, dug into his pocket, and handed him a couple of ones. “Get me an ice-cold cola,” he snapped.

  When the patrolman returned, Detective Johnson popped the top and handed it to me. “Here, drink this. You’re in shock.”

  Well, duh! Of course I was in shock. It shocked the hell out of me that I was seeing a dead woman—a dead woman who looked just as solid and real as everyone else in the parking lot. I rolled the cold can across my forehead, still looking at the woman and still not quite believing my eyes. Johnson squatted down in front of me.

  “Now, tell me what you see?”

  “Your lady is standing right there next to that shopping cart.” I pointed. The woman saw me and hurried over to us. “Great, now she’s coming over here.”

  Johnson looked all around him with a bewildered expression on his face.

  “I think she’s a ghost,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes.

  He patted my knee awkwardly. “Can you talk to her?” he asked.

  I nodded, wiping with the back of my hand at a tear that spilled down my cheek.

  “Ask her what happened to her,” he demanded. He knew I didn’t want to, but he kept patting my knee, and somehow it gave me strength.

  So I asked her. She told me that a woman came up to her car when she was getting out and asked her if she had seen a small, white dog. The woman was holding a picture of the dog, and when she leaned closer to look at it, someone put a rag with something sweet-smelling on it over her mouth and nose. The next thing she knew, she was back in the parking lot of the grocery store, watching all the police. I relayed this information to Detective Johnson.

  “My baby,” she told me, wringing her hands again. “I think they took my baby.”

  In horror, I told him what she’d said.

  “All right,” he said, hauling me back to my feet and propelling me to the car. “We’re going to treat this like we do every other case.”

  He opened the car door, snatched up the photos, and sat me down in the front passenger seat.

  “Forget the ghost, forget everything else,” he told me. “Work the pictures the way you always do. Find her.”

  So that’s what I did. I found her in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. I sat in the car and watched dozens of cops crawl all over the house and surrounding area. They brought in tracking dogs to see if they could pick up the trail, or at least point them in the right direction.

  Detective Johnson came back to the car with a determined stride. “Rommy,” he said, “close your eyes.”

  I looked at him with suspicion. “Why?” I asked.

  He opened my door and squatted down so that his face was level with mine.

  “I’m going to put something in your hand, but I don’t want you to look at it.”

  “It’s gross, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Not too bad,” he told me. “You don’t need to see it with your eyes to find what you’re looking for, you know that.”

  I wasn’t quite as confident as he was. I did need to look at the photos to find what I was l
ooking for, but I trusted him and his new ideas. I gave him a jerky nod to let him know that I would do it. The cola I drank earlier was churning around in my stomach. I closed my eyes and let him guide my hand into a plastic bag. I felt material, which was a relief. This wasn’t so bad. I concentrated and got a flash of a vehicle driving down the highway. Nothing looked familiar, so I waited, watching for a road sign. I finally saw what I needed and relayed the information back to Detective Johnson. He pulled my hand out of the plastic bag and stood up, shouting orders to the officers. I opened my eyes and looked down at my hand. My fingers were coated in bright-red blood. All at once, I caught the coppery smell and felt the wet stickiness on my fingers. I pushed open the door of the car, dropped to my knees, and emptied the contents of my stomach in the dirt. Good thing I hadn’t had that ice cream after all.

  Detective Johnson bundled me back into the car and drove me home. He insisted on escorting me into the house so that he could explain what had happened to me. My parents, although sympathetic about my barfing, were nevertheless ecstatic that I could see ghosts. My mom got on the phone to her coven while my dad thanked Detective Johnson for bringing me home.

  “You still want that ice cream?” he asked me and shook his head when I turned green, covered my mouth with my hand, and ran upstairs.

  I guess it’s fortunate for me that I am not required to go to that many crime scenes. It’s one thing to barf all over the place when you’re seventeen, but it’s entirely different when you’re twenty-seven and the people watching you barf are potential boyfriends.

  Chapter 3

  The knock on my door heralded the coming of one Detective Nick Cavanaugh. I answered the door and found standing on my porch the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen. He had dark, wavy hair, piercing eyes, wide, strong shoulders, washboard abs tapering into narrow hips, and strong thighs. I knew the minute he turned around I would see the tight denim of his jeans cupping a perfect ass. He was straight out of my favorite romance novel, but then he opened his mouth and the fantasy was over.