Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (44 page)

My eyes bugged. She had the crazy part down. “This is important, Cat.”

My sister only glared at me. “So is this wedding, Abby. Whatever this
new lead
of yours is, it can wait a few hours.”

I balled my hands into fists and started to protest again, but Cat wasn’t hearing
any of it. Instead, she held up her hand to me before turning to the woman carrying
the makeup cases, and
said, “Kendra, you remember my sister, Abby? She’s impossible. Still, you have an
hour to make her into a gorgeous bride. She will ask to borrow your phone. If I discover
you’ve lent it to her, and it results in any of our guests dodging this ceremony,
I will sue you into the ground. Do we have an understanding?”

The makeup artist paled; then she dug her phone out of her jacket pocket and handed
it to my sister. “I don’t need it while I work.”

Cat took it, narrowed her eyes at me one last time, then headed to the door, tossing
a “Good luck” to the makeup artist as she exited.

The door closed firmly behind my sister. I thought about chasing after her, but Cat
could enlist an army of support with one swipe of her AmEx no-limit credit card.

Kendra the makeup artist smiled nervously at me. My mind spun with options. Just as
I settled on one, there was a knock at the door. Kendra opened it for me and Jenny
Makeanote was there. “Hi, sorry, Abby, a messenger just dropped this off for you.
He said it was from Mr. Rivers and that he wanted you to read it before the ceremony.”

In her hand was a creamy envelope. Kendra took it and handed it to me. For a minute
I was too distracted to think about plans of escape. Opening the envelope, I found
a sweet card inside with a puppy on the cover. Opening the card, I immediately recognized
Dutch’s tight script and read:

I was a bit shocked by the message and turned the card over to see if there was more,
but there wasn’t. And then I had the boldest thought of all. If Dutch was alone at
the house, then maybe after I got through calling in my lead to Brice, I could talk
to my fiancé and convince him to ditch the ceremony and run away with me. I knew that
Cat would be absolutely furious, and Dutch’s family too, but deep down I just didn’t
think that I could go through with this whole Cirque du Ceremony. Dutch loved me.
He’d listen. He’d do it for me if it was important enough. I just knew it.

“Miss Cooper?” Kendra asked.

I jumped a little, realizing Kendra was still in the room and looking at me expectantly.
I doubted she’d let me leave without alerting Cat. Smiling brightly at her (man, my
smile was getting a good workout these days!) I said, “Let me just go to the bathroom
and you can have at me.”

Kendra seemed to relax and she returned my smile. I almost felt sorry for her. “No
problem! I’ll get my stuff set out. Take your time.”

I headed to the bathroom, making sure to take my cane, the note, and my purse with
me. I then moved immediately to the window, which was thankfully on the outer side
wall of the house, out of view of the wedding crew, and pulled it open slowly, careful
not to let it squeak. Then I pushed out the screen and hoisted myself up and out,
landing a bit indelicately on the soft grass. Squatting down low, I snuck around the
house to the driveway. Looking around, I waited until the coast was clear, and then
I hurried to my car; ducking into it, I started the engine with a pounding heart and
raced out of the drive. I didn’t relax until I’d made it to the highway, but the thrill
of escaping the ceremony was amazing. Deep down I knew I’d never go back there. As
I drove, one thought prevailed—I had to get to Dutch.

Our house wasn’t far from the venue, only about ten minutes, and I pulled into the
driveway and saw there were no familiar cars there, but oddly, there was a white van.
I wondered if Dutch’s surprise involved a cargo van.

I was so intent to see him that I ignored the small tingle of warning my radar sent
off, and parked at the bottom of the drive, shuffling quickly to the back door, which
led straight into the laundry room. I turned the handle, finding it unlocked, and
stepped across the threshold calling out to Dutch. Almost immediately the fumes hit
me and I wobbled on my already unsteady feet. Where was my cane? Oh, yeah, it was
in the car. I’d been so anxious to see Dutch that I’d left it behind. But what was
in the house that was making me so dizzy? I blinked and tried to hold on to the washing
machine to steady myself, but my hand missed it and I sat down hard on the floor,
my head swimming so badly that I thought I was going to be sick.

My chin dropped forward and I saw stars, my vision was clouded by an encroaching darkness,
and I heard myself call out to Dutch again, but my own voice sounded dull and lifeless
to my ears. And then a figure stepped forward from the darkness of the hallway. But
it wasn’t Dutch. Whoever it was, he wore a gas mask. I could hear the sound of his
breathing filling my ears with a haunting sound.

“Wha…wha…Why?” I asked, even as I felt my head loll back toward the tile floor. A
sharp pain at the back of my head told me I was now flat on my back and as I stared
up, my already clouded vision was filled with the sight of that man in the mask standing
over me. And then I was falling down, down, down, and I saw nothing more.

M
.J. felt totally discombobulated flying through the air in a helicopter, which was
nothing like riding in an airplane. Closing her eyes to fight the motion sickness,
she squeezed the bar at the top of the chopper even more tightly. After a few minutes
of flying blind, however, she decided it was probably better to keep her eyes open,
but avoid looking down.

In the seat facing her was Dutch, his gaze trained on the ground visible through the
small window next to him. His face was hard and his jaw clenched, and there was a
large welt at the top of his forehead where he’d hit the ground after being Tased,
but his eyes were intense and focused. M.J. didn’t know how he was holding it together,
because if the tables were turned and word came in that her boyfriend, Heath, was
strapped to a bomb that could go off at any second, she’d have a complete meltdown.

Sitting next to Dutch was Candice; her lovely bridesmaid’s dress now torn and dirty,
her knees were both scuffed, and the paleness that’d marked her complexion earlier
had returned. She held tightly to Dutch’s hand while tears rolled down her
cheeks. M.J. knew exactly how she felt—the situation seemed hopeless.

Before entering the chopper, she’d learned that Abby had been seen heading down a
road close to the wedding venue. How she’d gotten there from the house, she could
only guess, and M.J. didn’t know if Abby was trying to make her way to the estate
or was trying to avoid it. M.J. suspected that she was probably out of her mind with
fear, and she simply couldn’t imagine what her friend might be going through.

The chopper made a sudden sharp sweeping turn and M.J. held her breath and fought
the lurch in her stomach. “Put it down!” Dutch shouted, his body leaning forward as
he stared out the window. M.J. knew he’d just spotted his fiancée.

Overcoming her fear, M.J. leaned forward too, and she caught a glimpse of a figure
in white moving raggedly along the side of a railing acting as a barrier to the edge
of a cliff.

The helicopter turned in another tight circle, but the pilot called over his shoulder
that there wasn’t a good place to land.

“Put it down on the road!”
Dutch shouted.
“Now!”

Still the pilot hesitated until Brice, who was sitting in the front seat, motioned
firmly for him to do it.

M.J. swallowed hard as the chopper began to lower toward the ground. She knew that
if a car approached and didn’t see the helicopter in time, there could be terrible
consequences, but as she looked through both windows, she didn’t see any cars coming.
And then with a hard bump they were down.

Dutch was out of the chopper in an instant, and Candice was right behind him.

M.J. got out quickly too, looking everywhere for Abby. She wasn’t sure why she’d been
brought along in the chopper, but she felt certain that Candice had been right to
insist on her coming. Still, one look toward the other side of the road told her
how desperate their situation was. Abby was perhaps fifty yards away from them, and
she was gripping the side of the railing desperately. The poor thing was draped in
the torn remnants of a wedding gown, covered in dirt, grass stains, and blood. Around
her chest was a terrible sight—a metal cage encased her torso secured by half a dozen
padlocks, and in the center of the cage was a digital clock and several black tubes
that looked like dynamite.

Abby herself was covered in cuts, scrapes, and bruises, her hair a tangled mess and
her face stained with tears and dirt. She was shouting at Dutch and holding up her
hands as if to stop him from coming closer. M.J. was too far away and the chopper
was too loud for her to hear what Abby was saying, but her body language was clearly
begging Dutch and Candice not to approach her.

Still, Dutch moved steadily forward, but just as he was within reach of her, Abby
did something most desperate. She swung a leg over the side of the railing, and for
a moment, M.J. thought she was going to jump into the ravine below.

Dutch took three running steps and lunged—reaching her hand, he grabbed it tightly
and refused to let go. Instinctively, M.J. moved closer, in spite of the danger of
the bomb strapped to Abby’s chest.

Candice was much closer to Abby and Dutch, and when she was about ten yards away,
Dutch put up his own hand and told her to stop. Abby cried out to Candice then, and
M.J. faintly heard her say, “He’s at the wedding! Candice, he’s at the estate waiting
for me!”

M.J. felt a hand on her back and beside her Brice shouted to Candice, who immediately
turned around and raced back toward them, waving to the chopper pilot, who looked
as if he was ready to sweep into the air again. Before she knew it, Brice and Candice
were back in the chopper and it was lifting off and whisking them away.

For a brief few seconds, it was once again quiet except for the sounds of Abby sobbing,
begging Dutch to get away from her before the bomb went off. And then the air was
filled with the approaching sounds of sirens.

A
s I sat on the edge of the bed in the lovely cottage above the estate, staring at
my abductor, I thought about begging. In fact, I was fully prepared to slide down
to my knees and plead to him for mercy. But one look at the triumph in his eyes told
me he wasn’t the merciful type.

And that caused me to burst into tears. Great big sobs rose in my throat and I was
helpless to stop them. “Why?” I blubbered. “Why, Russ? You
know
me. I had nothing to do with Mimi’s suicide. I never even met her.”

Russ Buslawski—my oh-so-friendly and oh-so-helpful exterminator, who’d solved my scorpion
problem and the cricket infestation at our new home—got up from the chair and came
over to stand in front of me. “Don’t you see, Abby?” he said in a gentle voice that
sickened me. “It’s destiny.”

I shook my head and more tears slid down my cheeks. “
How
is killing me destiny?”

Russ sighed, as if he were truly sorry that I didn’t understand. “In the beginning
I wasn’t going to involve you at all. I was going to let Haley be the last one, but
then I found out that you
were working the case, and you were also getting married, and you took Haley out of
my reach. Remember?”

And I did remember. I remembered looking at her in the Jamba Juice store and feeling
that her life was in danger and that we had to protect her. I’d been the one to talk
Brice into putting her into protective custody. I realized that Russ had meant to
kill both women who worked there. He’d gone after Debbie first, but he’d planned on
murdering Haley too.