GODDESS OF THE MOON (A Diana Racine Psychic Suspense) (3 page)

Opening her eyes, s
he let out a long, slow breath. “This is strange.”

“What?” Lucier asked.

She
draped the blanket over the railing, looking confused
. “I felt the baby. She’s alive, I’m sure, and not being harmed, but I sensed the presence of other babies. I heard them.”

Mr. Seaver let out a strangled sigh. Tears filled his eyes. “I’m sorry. This is very emotional for me.”

“I understand,” Lucier said.
“
Anything else
,
Diana
?”

Her gaze shifted from Lucier to Beecher
to Mr. Seaver
and back to Lucier. “She’s in a pleasant place. Warm, with sun shining in. Another nursery, I think. The room was painted pink with high ceilings and crown molding, characteristic of an old Victorian house.
”

She started to say something else but stopped
.
S
omething she didn’t want to say in front of the baby’s father
?
Walking
to the window
, she touched
the sill.

“Are you sure my daughter is okay?”
Mr. Seaver
asked
.

She turned
to face him
. “
Some
people don’t believe in what I do, Mr. Seaver
, and
though I don’t want to give you false hope, I’d stake my reputation that
your daughter is alive and being well taken care of.”

He stifled a sob
, and this time the tears slid from the corners of his eyes
. “Thank you.”
T
o Lucier, he said
,
“Find the man who took our baby, Lieutenant. Find him and lock him away forever.”

* * * * *

O
n their way back to the station, Lucier asked Diana what she
didn’t
say at the house.

“What I saw
―
the room
―there was
an aura of danger. The baby feels safe, but she’s not.”

“In what way?”
Beecher asked.

“I don’t know.” Diana wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “Those babies are in an atmosphere of evil.”

Lucier
didn’t like to show overt affection
toward Diana
in front of his men, but this time he didn’t care. He
pulled
her
close
because she shivered in the fear she just described
. “Did you see anyone with her?”

“N
o, I told you everything I saw.”

“Get Stallings on the phone, Sam. Ask him if
the stats in this case match
any other incidents.
T
he
feds
do
it better and faster.
I don’t recall any baby kidnappings in New Orleans, but
there might be
a pattern.
First, l
et’s
verify
if
we’re dealing with a single episode.
”

They drove into the parking lot of the French Quarter
Police Department
.
“
Someone targeted that baby
,” Lucier said
.
“
I
assume you have
a l
ist of patients and visitors during the time
she
was in the hospital
?”

“We do.
Employees too
,
”
Beecher said.

Lucier ruffled Diana’s mass of curly black hair and added an affectionate smile.
“
Maybe
Halloran noticed something on the tapes
.”

* * * * *

“
A
nything?”
Lucier asked when Halloran entered his office.

“I
captured
some stills of people
at
the birthing center that week,” Halloran said.
“Most worked there.
O
ne of our guys
is
there now with the photos to s
ee who
hasn’t
show
n
up for work.
”

Lucier
ran
his fingers through his hair in frustration.
“
Hope we
get lucky.”

* * * * *

D
iana
remembered the first time she walked into the
French Quarter police
station
.
I
nstead of the disdain she
’d
experienced that first night
,
today
the
cops
seemed glad to see her.
After chatting with a
few of the
m she
took
the visitor’s chair
in Lucier’s office.
The framed degrees
and
citations
still hung on the wall, and t
he photos of his family sat in the same place on the bookcase, as they should
. Only
now
,
her picture faced in his direction on his desk, leaving no doubt they w
ere in a personal relationship.

Beecher entered the office
, tucking in
his unruly
shirt.
When
they
first met,
Beecher had
called
Diana
a phony and a charlatan. The epithets weren’t new. She’d heard them all before when she gave up helping the police at age fourteen to enter the
entertainment
world. She usually ignored the comments, but Beecher’s attitude had bugged the hell out of her. Her on-target psychic readings
had
changed his opinion, and their relationship settled into one of mutual respect. In fact, they actually liked one another, but both kept up the adversarial repartee to keep things interesting.

“No one remembers seeing anyone
at the hospital
who shouldn’t
have been there,” Beecher said.
“But the pictures might jog someone’s memory.”

“
What about the Seavers’
neighbors?”

“
The people on one side weren’t home, and the woman on the side of the nursery
didn’t
notice
anything.
Her
young
son has a desk by the window, but t
he boy’s autistic
.
Wouldn’t even look at me.”

“
I saw that window
,”
Diana said. “
Was he at
home
during the
time
the baby
was taken?”

“The mother said yes
,
but like I said, he
’s autistic
.
She said he talks some.
”

“
Hmm, I wonder if she’d let me try to talk to him.”
Diana
said
, unable to keep the lilt of hope from her voice. “Sometimes autistics notice things others don’t. I know this because I did a reading once for a woman in Boston with an autistic child. She’d read a story about a young man who’d come out of his mental prison and wanted to know if I saw it happening to her son.”

“Did you?” Lucier asked.

“No.
Not that it couldn’t,
but I didn’t see it. It’s very rare. The interesting thing about my client’s son was that he could tell the day of any date, either past or future. I asked him what day February 7, 2021, would be, and he told me without hesitation. He was always right.”

“That’s freaky,” Beecher said.
“Gives me the willies.”

“What makes you think the boy will talk to you?” Lucier asked.

A smile curled her lips. “Maybe he won’t talk, but
he might
speak to me.
With or without words.”

Clarity in All the Confusion

L
iz Shore, the mother of the autistic boy, agreed to Diana’s visit. The Shores
’
brick ranch
boasted a neat lawn, two-car garage, and a generous backyard. Mrs. Shore greeted Diana and Lucier and led them into a large family room. A young boy about eight worked feverishly
by the window
at a table
covered with white drawing paper and an array of crayons neatly organized in color range. Half a dozen vibrant sketches were tacked to a corkboard. An exhibit of his current work, Diana assumed.

Jamie Shore looked like most boys his age, except for the obvious indifference toward his visitors. Sandy
-
colored hair framed an almost angelic face, and the one time he lifted his head, bright blue eyes show
ed
th
rough a canopy of thick lashes.

“Does Jamie have any special gifts? Anything we can focus on that might help us?”
Diana asked Mrs. Shore.

The woman
cast an appreciative glance at her son and nodded. From the pride in her expression, she was one of those mothers who
devoted
time cultivating whatever special talents Jamie possessed.

“He insists everything be neat and organized, and he remembers details. Things you and I wouldn’t even notice, Jamie absorbs
everything
like a sponge.”

“Do you think he paid any attention to the
house next door
?”

“It’s possible, Ms. Racine.
When he’s not drawing, he
watches
out the window.
Like I told the detective
who came over here after the kidnapping
, I was
busy in the kitchen making dinner. My husband was watching a ballgame.
If Jamie
had seen something next door
, he’ll
remember
everything he saw. He specializes in minutia.”

“What will happen if I take his hand?”

“He might pitch a fit
, might not
. He doesn’t like
being touched by strangers
unless he wants them to or unless he wants to touch them. One never knows what his reaction will be.”

“Does he have any special toys?
A prized blanket?
Something that makes him comfortable.”

She offered a weak smile. “
H
e doesn’t play with toys
, just the crayons
.”

T
he strain in
Mrs. Shore’s
voice
prompted
Diana
to
reach over and g
i
ve her a reassuring squeeze. “Will you allow me to touch him?”

“If you think it might help.”

Mrs. Shore and Lucier took a
seat
on the sofa nearby while Diana
, armed with the stack of photos Halloran
lifted
off the hospital tapes,
pulled a chair from the other side of Jamie’s table
to
sit by him and
meet him at eye level. He continued to draw as if she weren’t there. She sat with her eyes closed, sending what she hoped would be positive vibes.
S
he spoke
calmly in a
soft
,
steady
voice
,
unlike the exuberance she displayed at her visits to the
hospital
s’
children’s wards.

“Hi, Jamie, my name is Diana. Do you mind if I sit here for a minute?” He
didn’t
react to the sound of her voice, but a slight hesitation in his drawing told her he acknowledged her presence.

“Those are beautiful drawings.” She reached out for
a finished
one on the table. “May I have this one?”

He kept
coloring
as if he didn’t hear her, but then he pushed the drawing toward her.

Diana’s heart leapt. She glanced at Mrs. Shore, who returned a smile with a hand clasped across her chest. Headway, Diana thought. She talked to him some more about his drawing before she said, “May I touch your hand?” Again, he didn’t respond. Slowly, she reach
ed for the hand closest to her.

A
t first touch, he recoiled, dropped his crayon, and pushed the air in her direction without touching or looking directly at her. His gaze circled the room―up at the ceiling, out the window, and down on the floor, then at his hands, wringing them, concentrating as if they
harbored a secret only he knew.