Lethal Outlook: A Psychic Eye Mystery (28 page)

“Gives more credence to Velkune’s account that she came to see him and was afraid of her husband, right?”

“It does,” I said. Still, I had my doubts about pegging Tristan as the killer. Maybe it was because when I’d fallen from those two steps, he’d lunged to help me, and while he held me in his arms, he’d been very gentle. Nothing in his
energy spoke of trying to fake some genuine concern for me. I just didn’t buy him as the man who had beaten, raped, and murdered his wife in cold blood.

I said as much to Candice, and she sighed. “This case has way more questions than answers. I mean, we don’t know what caused Kendra to go down so fast without letting out even one scream, or who this mysterious man in the ball cap is, or where her remains are buried, and for that matter, where the hell is her car?”

“Underwater,” I said.

“What?”

I sat bolt upright. That answer, like the one about her lover, had come out of my mouth without my thinking about it. “It’s underwater!” I said, focusing my attention on the car.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes!” I said, aiming my radar straight at Kendra’s car and holding on tight while I sorted through the intuitive clues.

Candice pulled into a Target parking lot. Turning to me, she said, “Can you find the car?”

I closed my eyes. “I think it’s east of a main highway.”

“Mopac? Three-sixty? One-eighty-three? I-thirty-five?” Candice rattled off most of Austin’s major thoroughfares in rapid-fire succession.

I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, waiting for the ether to give up its clues. And that’s when I saw a double-decker bus in my mind’s eye.

“Crap,” I said, trying to push the image out of my head so that I could figure out which highway we needed to focus on.

“What’s crap?”

I growled with irritation. The bus just kept appearing in my mind’s eye. “I’m trying to figure out which highway, but all I keep seeing is a double-decker bus.”

“A what?”

“Double-decker bus,” I said meekly.

“Is that a clue?”

My eyes snapped open. “It must be!”

“About the highway we need to find?”

I concentrated on the red bus, which I could see so clearly in my mind. It moved down the road and stopped at the foot of a lake. “No,” I said. “It’s a clue to where the car is. It’s a clue to a lake. The car is in a lake and there must be a bus depot or something to do with double-decker buses and the lake. The association is too strong for me to ignore.”

Candice pulled out her iPhone and began to poke at the screen. I could see her trying several searches, until suddenly she gasped and swiveled the phone to me. “Decker Lake!” she exclaimed before I could even read it.

“Yes! That’s it! I know that’s it!”

Candice set her phone aside and pulled back on the gearshift. “The lake is just east of Highway one-eighty-three,” she told me. “About ten minutes from here.”

I tapped my fingers on my knees the whole way there. I was so anxious to see if I was right that I couldn’t hold still. As we came up to the lake, however, I could see Candice’s mood shift from excited to frustrated in an instant. “It’s huge,” she said, eyeing the large body of water.

But I now had a clear bead on Kendra’s car. It was drawing me like a beacon. “That way,” I said, motioning to the right.

Candice cast me a surprised look, but she didn’t hesitate to pull the car to the right and follow the road around the east side of the lake, while I sat forward and scanned both the ether and the area. “Keep going,” I said when Candice began to slow down.

She pressed the gas again, and the road got bumpy. We passed a campground and an abandoned bait shop, and the road got worse as we went along. I knew Candice was gripping the wheel and gritting her teeth—her Porsche clearly wasn’t made for terrain like this—but she kept going until I suddenly yelled, “Stop!”

For a few seconds we both just sat there and gazed out the windows. The area we were in was a bit off the lake, which was just visible through the trees. I checked my radar and had the feeling I needed to get out of the car and take a look around.

I did, and Candice got out too. Coming over to stand next to me, she seemed to be waiting for me to say something. “Her car is somewhere nearby,” I said. I could
feel
its presence. I limped over to the left side of the road and poked with my cane at the underbrush for any sign that a car had been hidden there or had been pushed through the vegetation on its way into the lake. Nothing but thick foliage stared back at me.

“Maybe it’s up the road a bit more,” Candice suggested.

I shook my head. I knew it wasn’t.

Easing back down the road, I kept my eyes peeled, and about ten feet away from Candice’s Porsche, I shouted, “Yes!”

Candice hurried to my side, and I lifted my cane to point down the short slope at the barely visible tread marks, which had flattened the grass and foliage. “See that?” I said, waving my cane at a slight arch between several trees. “The car went in through there.”

I made to follow the tracks when Candice caught my arm. “Hang on,” she said. “We don’t want to disturb the crime scene.”

I moved back to the road. “Right. Still, shouldn’t we make sure that Kendra’s car did go into the lake through here before we call in the cavalry?”

Candice nodded and moved to her own car. Opening the trunk, she pulled out a pair of leather work boots. “I keep these on hand just in case,” she said, slipping out of her heels.

After tucking in her pant cuffs, she moved to the far side of the tracks and began walking parallel to them, keeping her eyes trained on the ground. I saw her ease into the underbrush and all but disappear from view.

“Candice?” I called after not hearing from her for a bit.

“I’m here!” she replied. And then she was back in my line of sight and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“What’d you find?” I asked.

She moved back up the slope next to me before answering. “It’s hard to see, but I did manage to glimpse the car,” she said.

My eyes widened.
“I was right?”
I mean, I knew I could
be, but it was still kind of freaky that nothing but my intuition had led us straight to Kendra’s car.

“You seem surprised,” she said, grinning at me while she pulled her phone from her jacket.

“Hey, even we psychic types get surprised when we take a shot in the dark and it finds the mark.”

Candice nodded again and held up a finger. “Hey, handsome,” she said into the phone.

My brow rose. I hadn’t counted on her calling Brice first.

“I’m with Abby out by Decker Lake on the east side, and I think we might have a bit of a situation on our hands…”

I let Candice talk to Brice without interrupting, but I could already tell he wasn’t going to rush out with a bunch of agents to dredge the lake. When she hung up, she looked frustrated. “Dammit,” she grumbled.

“He wants you to call APD, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. He’s knee-deep in the mall bombing case and he can’t spare any guys. Plus, he did point out that it’s not exactly his jurisdiction.”

“It isn’t his jurisdiction
yet
,” I said wistfully. “It’d be so much easier if the FBI got involved.”

“It would,” Candice agreed as she tapped the screen on her phone again. She then placed it to her ear and said, “Yes, hello, dispatch? Can you please connect me to the homicide unit?”

S
everal hours later, Candice and I stood behind yellow “crime scene, do not cross” tape, watching a tow truck ease
Kendra’s wet car up to the road by a long cable. Hordes of police, CSIs, and homicide detectives swarmed the scene, along with the first of what was likely to be several TV news crews.

The hour was growing late and I was once again light-headed with hunger—no surprise there. I wanted to leave, but we’d been specifically told to wait right where we stood because the detectives had more questions for us—no surprise there either.

At last the lead detective on the case, Jan LenDale, came toward us, motioning for another suit to follow her. “Here we go,” I muttered as they approached. I watched their faces closely. There wasn’t a hint of warmth in either of their expressions. I felt myself brace for what was to come.

“Ladies,” LenDale said when she’d stopped in front of us. “This is my boss, Captain Ramirez.”

Candice and I both nodded to the middle-aged man in front of us with a moody and highly skeptical look on his face. “Which one of you is supposed to be psychic?” he asked.

Apparently he wasn’t so fond of formalities. “Me. I’m Abby Cooper and I’m a professional intuitive.”

He studied me for a minute, the skepticism in his eyes increasing.

I tried not to squirm.

“So…what?” he finally asked. “You had a vision about where to find Kendra Moreno or something?”

I tamped down the irritation his derisive tone sparked and simply pointed to the dripping car moving slowly up the incline. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Right,” he said, adopting a mocking smile.

“It might help you to know that Abby is on the FBI payroll,” Candice said evenly.

That got Captain Attitude’s attention. “She’s a fed?”

“I’m a consultant to the bureau’s cold-case squad here in Austin,” I said, digging through my purse for my ID.

I had just located it when we heard, “Captain! Detective LenDale! Over here!”

All four of our heads snapped in the direction of Kendra’s car, where one of the CSIs was standing next to the now open trunk.

Captain Attitude turned back to us. “Stay put.”

I had the urge to salute smartly, but Candice must have noticed I was close to making a wisecrack because she squeezed my arm and said, “We wouldn’t dream of leaving, sir.”

LenDale and Ramirez trotted away, and when they reached the trunk they both peered inside as the CSI who’d called them over pointed to something. “Do you think Kendra’s body is in there?” Candice asked me.

I shook my head. “No. Her body’s somewhere else.” The feeling that she had been buried out in the woods in a shallow grave was as strong as ever, so if there was something of interest in the trunk of that car, it wasn’t Kendra’s body.

We watched LenDale and Captain Attitude question the CSI for a bit; then all three looked our way, and I could tell they were about to come back to us when a car came barreling down the road, plowing through the crime scene tape before braking hard. Out of the door flew Mrs. Woodyard.
“Did you find her?!”
she yelled frantically.
“Did you find my baby?!”

Everybody seemed completely caught off guard by her sudden appearance, and two patrol officers moved fast to try to restrain her, but she somehow managed to dodge them and dashed forward toward the still-leaking car.
“Kendra!”
she cried, her voice ragged and choked.

Detective LenDale managed to catch her before she could get to the car, and Mrs. Woodyard collapsed in her arms, wailing and flailing about.

As much as I didn’t like the woman, my heart went out to her in that moment. The car was the clincher. It was one ominous sign too many that Kendra was no longer alive, and I knew that her mother was finally accepting that something truly terrible had happened to her daughter.

Captain Ramirez helped his detective support Mrs. Woodyard, and all Candice and I could do was watch as the poor woman sobbed and shrieked and flailed her fists in agony.

Once they’d calmed her down, they began to lead her away from the car, and that put us in her direct line of sight. This was unfortunate, because the distraught woman took one look at me, caught her breath, and planted her feet hard. Then she lifted a trembling arm to point straight at me as she asked the captain something. He glanced in our direction before replying.

Suddenly, Mrs. Woodyard’s demeanor changed completely. She went from grieving mother to angry accuser, and I could hear snatches of what she was saying to the captain and the detective.

“Uh-oh,” said Candice. “Why do I think this isn’t gonna end well for us today?”

“Because it never ends well for us,” I grumbled.

Sure enough, LenDale called to a patrolman, who took over supporting Mrs. Woodyard, freeing the detective to come back over to us. Stopping directly in front of me, she said, “Were you at Tristan Moreno’s home this morning?”

“Yes.” I had no reason to lie.

LenDale’s expression was mostly unreadable, but I still had the distinct impression she was seriously ticked that I hadn’t mentioned that minor detail.

“We’ll need you to come down to the department and answer a few questions, Ms. Cooper,” she said, lifting up the crime scene tape and waving me forward.

“I’ll come too,” Candice said when I hesitated.

“No,” LenDale replied, her tone icy. “Just Ms. Cooper.”

Great.

“Really?” Candice asked, adopting an oh-so-friendly smile. “But I was at the house with Abby this morning too, Detective. And I’ve been investigating this case right along with her. So if there’s something you want to ask her, I’m sure I can corroborate her answers.”

“And her alibi?” LenDale asked snidely.

“If need be,” Candice told her, dropping the whole friendly shtick.

“Fine,” LenDale said, motioning to her sedan parked on the far side of the crime scene. “Stick to the perimeter and get in that blue sedan.”

“We’ll take my car,” Candice insisted, pulling me away
from the tape and over to her car. “And we’ll meet you there, Detective.”

LenDale glared hard at us as we began to walk away, and I saw her motion again to another patrolman to come over to her. “She’s gonna have us tailed to the station,” I said.

“Yep,” Candice said without looking back.

“This just got bad, didn’t it?”

Candice grunted. “I’m pretty sure we bypassed bad, Sundance, and wound up smack-dab in the middle of shih tzu.”