Crossing Danger: A Shelby Nichols Adventure (4 page)

After she left, Scott lowered his voice. “I’ve given her some cash every now and then when she visits, but I haven’t told Kira. I don’t think it’s enough to pay for a plane ticket, or even a bus ticket, unless she’s been saving it up.”

“If she bought a bus ticket, is there a grandparent or aunt and uncle she would go visit?” Bates asked.

Scott shook his head. “I’ve already called all the relatives, even on Kira’s side. No one’s seen her.”

“What?” Kira asked, only catching the tail end of the conversation.

Scott explained that he’d called her parents and sisters, and a cold spike of resentment went through her. Then she realized it was something she should have done, and guilt flooded over her again. She glanced at each of us in the room, thinking that we probably all thought she was a terrible mother. Maybe she was.

Lately, Chloe had been whining about everything, and it drove her crazy. She’d even thought about how much easier her life would be without her...and now she was gone. Was it all her fault? What if something bad had happened to Chloe? What if she never came home?

“What about your boyfriend,” I asked. “Would Chloe have gone to visit him, or would he have taken her somewhere?”

Kira’s eyes widened with alarm, and her heart-rate spiked. How the hell did I know about him? She’d kept him a secret from everyone. Not even Chloe knew she had a man in her life.

Everyone turned their gazes to Kira and she immediately went on the defense. “How did you...this is insane...what makes you think I have a boyfriend?”

I raised my brows. “That’s why you work so late, isn’t it? To be with him? In case he had anything to do with Chloe’s disappearance, you have to tell us who he is.”

She flushed before gaining her composure, knowing she couldn’t lie about him now without looking like a total failure. “I don’t know how you found out about him, but I can assure you he had nothing to do with Chloe’s disappearance.”

Bates glanced at me, a fissure of unease rolling through him. I’d just done that “ju-ju” thing, and he didn’t like it, but if Kira had a boyfriend, that put a whole new spin on things. “I’d like to talk to him,” he said. “Just to make sure we’ve covered all our bases.”

Kira swallowed, thinking this was terrible. No one was supposed to know about him. This whole affair was their little secret, and she’d promised not to tell anyone. If she did, he’d be furious. “Couldn’t we just wait and see if she turns up? Give her a little more time to come home?”

“Kira!” Scott said. “How can you say that? This is our daughter, and she’s missing!”

She dropped onto the couch, her head in her hands. “I know...I know. It’s just...I can’t believe this is happening. How could she do this to me...to us? She’s normally such a good girl.” She glanced up at us, tears rolling down her cheeks. “But maybe she did run away. We had an argument the other day. She threatened to go live with Scott. Since she’s not with him, then where could she be?”

I caught a general feeling of disgust towards Kira from pretty much everyone in the room. In the back of her mind, she was even wondering if Scott had done this on purpose just to get back at her. Her reaction gave me a sick, queasy feeling, and I felt sorry for both Chloe and Scott. She was even trying to decide if she should give Bates her boyfriend’s real name or tell him it was someone else...

“Shelby?” Holly asked, her voice a harsh whisper.

“Huh?”

“Is that okay with you?”

I realized I’d missed something, but quickly picked up that Holly wanted me to go to the school with her and talk with some of Chloe’s teachers and classmates. “Oh, yeah...sure. That’s a good idea.”

Bates prodded Kira for her boyfriend’s contact information. She hesitated before making her choice. “His name is Matt Swenson. I’ll give you his number, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to him at home.” She gave Bates the cell phone number and slumped into the couch in defeat.

Scott stopped cold, shock sending a shiver all the way to his toes. This was insane. Matt had been a friend to him when he’d first started his career. He was also ten years older than Kira and, even though he was married and had a respectable career, he was known for his philandering ways. How could Kira do this with Matt? What the hell? How long had this been going on? Was this the real reason she’d wanted the divorce?

My eyes widened, and I slammed my shields tight, unable to handle the anguish pouring from both of their minds. This was a mess. I thought stuff like this only happened on TV shows, not in real life. I turned to Holly and motioned with my head to leave. She nodded, and we cleared out of there before Bates could stop us.

“Let’s take my car,” I said, relaxing my shields now that we were out of the house.

“Okay,” Holly agreed. A twinge of guilt passed through her for leaving Scott to fend for himself.

“You can text Scott and tell him where we went in a minute. He’ll be grateful that we’re doing something since he’s stuck there with the police and Kira. It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” Holly nodded, feeling better. “That’s true.” She sent me a grateful smile. “I don’t think I could’ve stayed with Kira one more minute or I might have strangled her. Can you believe the gall? Telling Bates to leave her boyfriend out of it?” She shook her head, then glanced at me with curiosity. “Hey...how did you know...was that...did you get a ‘premonition’ that she had a boyfriend?”

“Yup,” I nodded. I’d told Holly right after I got shot in the head that I had premonitions. I didn’t want her to know the truth that I could actually read minds. She was my best friend, but if she knew I could hear her thoughts? I wasn’t sure I wanted to put that burden on her. Since then, I’d shared lots of stories about my psychic ability, but this was the first time she’d seen me in action.

“Wow...that is so cool. I mean...I know you told me you could do that, but I didn’t know how it worked.” She’d always given me the benefit of the doubt, especially after all the things I’d told her, but it was still something else to see it in person. A surge of hope swelled inside her, and I braced myself. “Have you seen anything about Chloe? Is she all right?”

“No...sorry. It doesn’t always work like that. Most of the time, my premonitions are more like intuition, or a hunch, rather than a vision of the future. That’s why it’s really good that we’re going to the school. If I’m around her friends, or in her class, I might be able to pick up something.”

“Oh...okay. That makes sense. I’m just so worried. What if she’s been abducted? And the longer she’s gone...well, they say the chance of finding someone alive after twenty-four hours isn’t very good.”

“I know,” I agreed. “But it might be true that she ran away. That’s a different story. Maybe one of her friends knows where she is but hasn’t told anyone. If we start asking questions, that might get someone to open up and tell us what they know.”

Holly nodded and sent a text to Scott about where we were going. A few seconds later, she got a response and groaned. “Scott and Detective Bates are coming too. Scott says since we’re not her parents, the school won’t give us any information about Chloe without him there. I guess I forgot about that.”

“Oh...yeah. That’s right. At least we can still log in as visitors while we wait.”

We were just getting our visitor badges when Scott and Detective Bates came inside. Although he didn’t say anything, Bates was fuming that we’d left and taken matters into our own hands, thinking he was the investigator here, not me. I moved behind Scott after hearing that, wanting to stay out of his way until he cooled down.

After he explained the situation to the principal, Mrs. Pascoe, I realized he had a point. As a police detective, he had the authority to get the school’s cooperation, and I was grateful he was there. I could let him take the lead and sit back and ‘listen’ easily enough. If I heard anything that merited further questioning, I could speak up at that point.

Scott handed the list to Mrs. Pascoe, but there were only two names written down. He wasn’t even sure how close his daughter was with these girls, but they were the only names he could remember. At least when he’d called the girl’s parents, they knew who Chloe was, so that was a good sign.

I mentally winced at his ignorance, realizing that most fathers wouldn’t know that much about their daughter’s friends. I didn’t think Chris could say beyond a couple of names who Savannah’s friends were either.

Mrs. Pascoe sent for the students, and we waited in her office for them to arrive. Bates glanced at me. “I’ll ask the questions, and you can keep your mouth shut.”

I raised my brow and glared at him. “What’s wrong with you? Are you so afraid of my ‘ju-ju’ that you don’t want to find out where Chloe is? If I need to ask a question, I will.”

Bates’ jaw dropped, but he snapped it shut as the door opened. Mrs. Pascoe ushered the girls inside the room, and they both hesitated to see all of us sitting there. She told them to take a seat and explained that Chloe was missing. “This is Chloe’s dad and the police. They want to know if you’ve seen her, or if she said anything to either of you about why she’s not here today.”

“She’s not in trouble,” I added, to soothe their fears. “We’re just worried about her. We think she might have run away.” I smiled at the girls and continued. “Did she ever talk to either of you about that, or where she might go if she did?”

The girls looked at each other before one of them responded. “Oh...well...she talked about going to live with her dad...” Here she glanced at Scott, and he sent her a reassuring smile. “But she never said anything about running away.”

“When was the last time you saw her?” Bates asked.

“Um...I guess after school yesterday.” she answered.

“What was she doing?”

She pursed her lips and glanced at her friend, trying to decide if she should tell us the truth or keep Chloe’s secret.

“Chloe might be in real danger,” I said. “If you want to help her, you need to tell us the truth.”

Her eyes widened, and she glanced at her friend again. After a quick nod, she turned back to me, deciding she’d better tell the truth, even if Chloe didn’t want her to. “Well...we weren’t supposed to say anything, but she sort of has a boyfriend.”

“What the hell?” Scott shouted. “She’s barely fourteen!” I glanced at him with shock before realizing he’d only said that in his mind. His gaze caught mine, but I pulled my attention back to the girls before he wondered what was going on.

“Who is he?” Bates asked. “Was she with him yesterday?”

“Yeah...well, we don’t know his name or anything, and he doesn’t go to this school. He just picked her up in his car after school yesterday.”

“Does he pick her up all the time?” Bates asked.

“No...this was the first time.” She was thinking that Chloe had talked about this guy she’d met, but she’d never gone out with him. “She was excited that an older boy was paying attention to her, but I don’t think she’d ever gone out with him before. She would have told me.”

“What kind of car did he drive?” Bates asked.

They glanced at each other and shrugged. “I don’t know. It was an old car.”

“Probably a Honda,” the other girl answered, “Or something small like that. It was black.”

“Okay...thanks,” Bates said. “Anything else you want to tell us?”

They both shook their heads, then one of them asked. “Do you think she’s all right?”

“Yeah,” Bates answered. “We’ll find her.” He wasn’t so sure about that but didn’t want to scare the girls. “You can go now.”

After they left, Scott’s shoulders slumped. He could hardly believe a word they’d said. How could his little girl go off with some stranger? She knew better than that. If this kid had taken advantage of her in any way, he would kill him.

As we left Mrs. Pascoe’s office, Scott questioned Bates about what he was going to do next. Bates wasn’t as concerned now that he knew she’d left with a boy. “It doesn’t look like she was taken against her will, so that’s good. It means she’ll probably come home when she’s ready.” He didn’t want to admit that she still might be in trouble.

As we walked behind them, Holly turned to me. “Did you get anything?”

“Not really,” I answered. “It looks like she’s with this kid, but I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

Holly sighed. “Yeah. Poor Scott. I can’t imagine.”

Bates’ cell phone rang, and he quickly answered it. As he listened, I picked up that something bad had gone down. “I’m on my way.” He glanced at Scott, dreading what he had to tell him. “They found Chloe’s backpack. It’s at the scene of a murder.” He was thinking
three murders
, and my stomach tightened with dread.

“What??” Scott sputtered. “Is she...”

“She wasn’t there.”

Chapter 3

Scott reached for Holly, clinging to her for support. Bates continued, “I’m going to the scene right now. I’ll let you know what I find out. In the meantime, you should go back to the house and wait for my call.”

In shock, Scott could barely nod his head in agreement. His thoughts were a jumble of emotions that went from shock and worry to disbelief and an overwhelming feeling of fear. 

“Wait,” Holly said. “I want Shelby to go with you. She might pick up something.”

Bates pursed his lips, then huffed out a breath. “Fine.” He sighed heavily. “She can come.” He glanced at me. “As long as she stays out of my way.”

It was hard not to roll my eyes, but I managed. “Give me the address. I’ll take Scott and Holly home and meet you there.”

Bates pulled out his notepad and scribbled the address down on a piece of paper. He shoved it into my hand and hurried back to his car, grateful to let me take them home.

I did what I could to soothe Scott and Holly’s fear on the drive back to the house, promising to let them know what I found. After they got out of the car, I let out a relieved breath to have my thoughts to myself. Picking up on all that stress oozing from both of them had started to rattle me.

The scrawled address Bates gave me would have been indecipherable if I hadn’t heard it in his thoughts, and part of me wanted to smack him upside the head. I plugged the address into my GPS and drove to that part of town. Turning down the street, I found the house easily because of all the police cars.

This run-down neighborhood was close to the light-rail tracks. Graffiti covered the houses, and garbage littered the streets. In fact, without police cars present, I never would have had the courage to park my car and get out.

I opened the glove box, pulled out my honorary police ID badge, and slipped it over my neck. Sitting quietly to gain some composure, I took a deep breath before getting out of my car, knowing I had to prepare myself for the sight of three dead bodies. Since the sight of blood made me queasy, I sure hoped I could handle it. Luckily, I hadn’t eaten much today, so that should help.

A police officer stood in front of the door and ushered me inside, telling me not to touch anything without putting on some gloves. The shoddy living room held a battered couch and was littered with take-out food containers and empty beer cans, but the main attractions were the two dead bodies sprawled across the floor.

Without looking too hard at the bodies, I followed the sound of voices to a back room and caught the welcome sight of my favorite police detective, Harris, a.k.a. Dimples. Yes! Finally my luck was changing.

Dimples glanced up, and his eyes widened with surprise before he smiled. His dimples made big dents in his face, and for some reason, the tension left my shoulders. “Shelby! What are you doing here?”

Bates glanced up from his position by the third dead body and frowned. “I told her she could come. She’s friends with the missing girl’s family.”

“Bates doesn’t like that I’m involved,” I responded, deciding to tell the truth, even if it hurt his feelings. “But I’m here because the backpack belongs to my best friend’s niece, Chloe, and I was hoping I could help you guys find her.”

“That’s great,” Dimples said. “We can use your help.” He was thinking that Bates was an ass, and sometimes he just wished he could punch him in the face.

I smiled and nodded, but refrained from saying
me too
like I wanted. “So do you know who these guys are?”

“No ID on any of them,” he responded. “But this kid is young. Probably sixteen or seventeen.”

“I think this could be the kid Chloe left school with yesterday,” Bates added. “It looks like there was a disagreement and they all started shooting each other.”

I glanced at the boy with his wide-open eyes framed by a lock of dark hair dangling over his forehead. A sharp pang went through me. He was so young, only a few years older than Josh. What had happened to him? What had Chloe gotten herself into? “Where was her backpack?”

“In here,” he said. “It was shoved under the bed. We found her school ID and phone inside, along with some of her school work.”

“So...if they killed each other, what happened to Chloe?”

Dimples shook his head. “Without the backpack, we wouldn’t have known she was even here. I think she probably took off.”

“But if that’s the case, why hasn’t she shown up anywhere?” I asked.

Bates shrugged. “Maybe she has something to hide.” He was thinking that they’d found evidence of drugs, but it looked like someone had taken them and run.

My breath caught with outrage. Chloe wouldn’t have run off with drugs or money. How could he even think that? “I’m sure Chloe wasn’t involved with drugs. Maybe someone else was here. Maybe this person forced her to go with them.”

Dimples nodded, thinking that was what he’d concluded too, especially since she hadn’t shown up at home. Now besides a triple homicide, this could also be a kidnapping, and if that was true, he didn’t have much hope for the girl getting out alive. Not if she’d seen something she shouldn’t have. But if that were the case, why wasn’t she lying here dead too? Unless she ran, and her pursuer took a shot at her. That meant her dead body might be out in the yard somewhere.

“We need to search the area, just in case she’s nearby,” Dimples said. For my sake, he didn’t add that they needed to search for a dead body too.

Bates understood what Dimples meant and left to organize the search.

I sighed with despair, and my gaze was involuntarily drawn to the body. The sight of his lifeless eyes, combined with the heavy, coppery smell of blood, started to turn my stomach into a woozy lump. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“That’s all we have for now, but we’ve put out an AMBER Alert on Chloe. Hopefully we’ll find her.” He said that for my benefit, since he didn’t have much hope of finding her alive.

“Oh...uh...good...that’s good,” I stammered. “Uh...I should probably go. There’s not a lot I can do here.”

Dimples frowned, thinking it was too bad that I hadn’t picked anything up with my premonitions. Usually, I was better than this. 

“If I pick up anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

His eyes widened, but his mouth quirked into a half grin. He was thinking he should be used to how I did that by now, even though it always took him off-guard. “Sounds good.”

I left with a quick wave and got the heck out of there before I threw up. Standing next to my car, I inhaled deeply to calm my stomach. To take my mind off the grisly scene that seemed tattooed into my brain, I focused on the neighborhood. If Chloe got out of there alive, where would she run to get away from that house?

With the tracks so close, getting onto the light-rail train was probably her best bet. I didn’t know where the next station was, but I could do some exploring and find out. I walked toward the tracks and, about a block away, the street dead-ended at some concrete barriers. 

I leaned over the barriers and peered up and down the tracks, spotting what looked like a station on the other side not too far away. Hope flooded over me. Maybe Chloe came this way and hopped on a train.

In order to check it out, I’d have to climb the barrier and cross the tracks. I glanced both ways to make sure a train wasn’t coming and clambered over the slab of concrete. After landing on the other side, I concentrated on picking my way over the tracks. Now was not a good time to get a foot trapped in the rails.

Halfway across, I caught sight of a shoe lodged in a tight space between the rails, and my heart stopped. It looked exactly like the kind of shoe a fourteen-year-old girl would wear. Was it Chloe’s? Without being able to see in the dark, she might have gotten stuck and left it there. Before I could pull it out, the ground began to vibrate underneath me, and I glanced up to find a train roaring toward me.

My breath caught and I froze. Damn! With my heart pounding to beat the devil, I swallowed my instinct to run, and carefully picked my way back over the rails. At the edge of the track, I realized that the concrete barrier was higher on this side, and my stomach clenched. I could still reach the top, but it would take a little more effort to climb over. With the rumbling train getting closer, I found the motivation to heave myself up to the top and kick my legs over to the other side.

As I landed, my shaking legs barely supported me, but I backed away, counting the seconds before the train blew past. I’d made it to ten and let out a breath, relaxing my tight shoulders. That wasn’t so close...I had plenty of time to get out of the way. Still, I decided to go back to the house and tell Dimples about the shoe. After being that close to the train, there was no way I was going to try that again.

Back at the house, I was relieved to see Dimples talking with a police officer on the front porch. I approached, and his brows rose in puzzlement, but he excused himself and hurried to my side.

“I thought you left,” he said.

“Yeah...well, I took a detour.” I explained about the shoe and my close call with death. “It could be hers, so I think someone ought to get it...as long as it’s not me.”

Dimples shook his head. “I’ll get someone down there to retrieve it.” He was thinking finding the shoe was good detective work as long as it was Chloe’s, but it was most likely just someone throwing a shoe onto the tracks...and I’d almost gotten killed over that?

“I wasn’t actually crossing the tracks to get the shoe,” I explained, not liking how stupid he made it sound. “I didn’t even see the shoe until I got onto the tracks.”

“Then what were you doing on the tracks?”

“I just thought if she was trying to run away, she’d probably go that way and hop on a train. It’s what I’d do. So maybe if you figure out the time all of this happened and then link it to the times the train stops there...you could figure out what train she might have gotten on.”

“I like your train of thought.” Dimples grinned, pleased at his pun. “We could check the video feed on the surveillance cameras at the station too. Way to go, Shelby.” He playfully punched my arm.

I smiled, grateful my idea had merit. In fact, this could be our big break. We could find out where she went and, even better, we could find her. Who knew I’d be so good at this detective work? “Thanks. Let me know what you find, okay?”

“I will. Thanks Shelby.” Dimples didn’t want to tell to me that my idea was a long shot, and worse, he doubted that they’d find anything. He also hated to get his own hopes up, but it was worth taking a look. He was so tired of dealing with death, that he truly wanted a happy ending this time.

Hearing that kind of put a crimp in my style, and I headed to my car, wishing I really did have premonitions so I’d know if Chloe was still alive. Now I had to talk to Holly and Scott and let them know what was going on. I didn’t want to give them false hope, but I didn’t want them to think she was dead either.

I made it back to the ex’s house and filled them in on what we’d found. Three dead people kind of shocked them, but since none of them was Chloe, they took it in stride. They were also grateful that I’d been there and could fill them in, since Bates hadn’t gotten back to them.

By the time I left, I was tuckered out. Besides seeing those dead bodies and nearly being killed by a train, dealing with so many emotional thoughts had taken a toll on me, and I was ready to go home and take a bath.

Since it was just after three-thirty in the afternoon, I knew my kids would be there, and I couldn’t wait to see them. Desire to grab hold of them and give them each a big squeeze rushed over me.

I pulled my car into the garage and got out, noticing a couple of scrapes on my palms from the concrete barrier. Now that I knew they were there, they started to sting. Dang! Why did I have to notice? I washed my hands in the sink, then went in search of my kids. Savannah was in her room and, after a big hug, I asked her about her day. “Did anyone try to throw you into the bathroom today?”

“Mom...how did...did I tell you about that?” She didn’t remember telling me, but she must have if I knew.

Oh hell. I kept the smile on my face and shrugged. “I’m sure you did. How else would I know? But that’s not the point. I was just wondering if you got to use your new Aikido skills.”

“Oh yeah...no. Not today anyway. When’s the next class?”

“Tomorrow. We’ll go together, all right?”

“Sure.” She was thinking it might be fun to take a class with me. It also might be weird...

“Good,” I said, not wanting to hear anything bad about me right now. “Well...I need to find Josh. Have you seen him?”

“Um...I think he’s in his room.” She hadn’t seen him, so she didn’t know, but his room was a good guess.

“Okay...thanks.” On my way to his room, I decided to take something for my headache first. Normally, things didn’t bother me so much, but right now, my nerves were a little frazzled. I’d also missed lunch, but with the vision of three dead bodies so fresh in my mind, I wasn’t sure I could eat anything anyway.

After swallowing my pills with a big glass of water, I kicked off my shoes and headed downstairs. Josh had a great set up in the basement with a large bedroom and connected bathroom. Besides the laundry room, the rest of the space had an entertainment center on one end, and a pool table on the other.