Slightly Psychic

Praise for the work of Sandra Steffen

“Steffen is one of those authors whose characters and their emotions ring true, which makes each book a heartfelt treat.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“Steffen’s characters are thoroughly and thoughtfully conceived…the charm of this tale lies in her lovely portrayal of complex family relationships.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Cottage

“Sandra Steffen is a veritable master at creating characters. On a scale of 1–10, a 15!”

—ReaderToReader.com

“Steffen knows exactly how hard to tug on readers’ heart-strings for maximum effect.”

—Booklist

“A powerfully riveting story that pulls the reader in from page one and doesn’t stop…one of the most original plots I’ve ever seen…flawless characterization.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Come Summer

Sandra Steffen

Slightly Psychic isn’t Sandra Steffen’s first venture into tales about unexplainable psychic phenomena. Child of Her Dreams, one of her earliest novels (about a woman who is clairvoyant), won the 1994 National Reader’s Choice award. Since then more than thirty-five of Sandra’s novels have graced bookshelves in the United States and a dozen foreign countries. When she isn’t writing, she’s either thinking about writing or honing her slightly psychic abilities on her ever-growing circle of friends and family.

Slightly Psychic
Sandra Steffen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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From the Author

Dear Reader,

I’ve just filled three hundred pages, and now, when I’m all out of words, I wish for a few more to tell you how pleased I am to be able to entertain you with my newest creation, Slightly Psychic. Goodness, I have goose bumps!

Partway into telling this story, I almost had to change the title to Slightly Superstitious. First my computer had a motherboard problem (oh, the angst!), then a few weeks ago it shut down and refused to restart. It seems the fan fell off inside. Since I’ve never thrown salt over my shoulder and my cat is black and brings me nothing but joy, I’m sticking with my original title. After all, we make our own luck…but all women (and some men) become Slightly Psychic eventually. I have a hunch you already knew that.

I’m off to buy a new computer so I’m ready when the inspiration for my next novel washes over me. Meanwhile, I would love to hear from you. Since I’m not proficient in deciphering telepathic messages, please write to me via my Web site, www.sandrasteffen.com.

Until next time and always,

Sandra

For the newlyweds

Brad and Kelli

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary.

For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.”

—Author unknown

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 1

Lila Delaney waited to look the detective in the eye until after he ushered her into the small, cluttered office at police headquarters in Hartford. He watched her closely as she took her seat at the marred, Formica-topped table. A second detective adjusted the blinds before dropping to the chair opposite her. They didn’t believe what she’d told them over the phone.

“You said you know where Holly Baxter is,” the first one said the instant introductions were out of the way.

Lila’s reply was an anxious little cough that did nothing to alleviate the nerves jumping in her stomach. She hadn’t expected this to be easy. After all, she wasn’t a world-renowned psychic who could foretell the future. She simply had an unexplainable intuition that came in handy when helping her friends make career choices or find a lost pet. She’d never tried to help the police find a missing person. Of course, until this week, she’d never experienced a vision of this magnitude, and she’d certainly never ignored her own voice of reason, the one telling her to run, race, bolt in the opposite direction. Instead, here she was in Connecticut preparing to tell the authorities what she knew.

They wouldn’t have agreed to her request for a meeting if their meager leads hadn’t fizzled. The fact was, they were desperate to find Senator Charles Baxter’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Holly, who’d been missing for four days. Foul play was suspected, and everyone feared the worst.

“On the phone you said you saw Holly in your dreams.” The older of the two, Lieutenant Owens was doing the talking, Detective Malone the smirking.

Lila couldn’t decide who they reminded her of. Not Batman and Robin or the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Fred and Rickie? Ralph and Ed? Her longtime fiancé Alex Richardson often complained that she watched too much late-night television. He was due back from Dallas tomorrow. Surely if he were here, he would have tried to talk her out of this.

“Ms. Delaney?”

Hearing her name startled her. Recovering, she said, “My vision was similar to a dream, except I was awake when I saw her.”

Owens strummed his fingers on the tabletop. Malone leaned back in his metal chair, bored. Lila could only sigh. Trying to make a nonbeliever believe was like trying to make a color-blind man see yellow, green and blue.

Leveling both men an I’m-not-enjoying-this-any-more-than-you-are stare, she said, “Look. I’m a busy psychologist with a successful practice. I didn’t have to come here, and I want your word that you won’t exploit me or my efforts to help.” She waited for Owens to nod before she continued. “I believe Holly Baxter is being held in an old stone inn deep in the Hartford countryside.”

The detectives couldn’t help leaning ahead in their chairs. “What do you mean she’s being held?”

“Her hands were cuffed.”

“But she’s alive?”

Lila had seen Holly Baxter writhing, an expression of intense pain on her young face. Closing her eyes on a feeling of deep and imminent sadness, she said, “I believe she is, yes.”

“Where is this inn?” Malone asked, speaking for the first time.

This was the part Lila most dreaded trying to explain. “I don’t know where it is, exactly.”

“Oh, for crying out loud. She’s wasting our time.”

Malone was going to be no help whatsoever. Turning to his partner, Lila said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll know it when I see it.”

She wasn’t the only one who was surprised when he said, “Let’s go.”

Twenty minutes later she was sitting in the passenger seat of an unmarked police car heading out of Hartford. Other than occasional static on the police radio, not a sound came from the interior of that car. Keeping her mind clear of doubt, she concentrated on the falling leaves and the shadows cast by the evening sun. Every so often she told Detective Malone to turn right or left. She lost the trail a few times, and had to ask him to turn around. Each time they neared an old house that had been converted into a bed-and-break-fast inn, he slowed slightly, waiting for her to say something.

At one point she happened to notice him looking in his rearview mirror. A bundle of nerves, she glanced over her shoulder in time to see a Channel 4 news van round the corner behind them. He swore under his breath, but it was too late to turn back because goose bumps skittered up and down her body, and her earlier vision shot through her mind.

“Turn here,” she said louder than before.

He swerved. Barely keeping the car out of the ditch, he made a right onto Hampton Road.

“There,” she said, motioning to a narrow driveway between crumbling stone pillars. Her stomach was on fire, and she felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as they pulled through the open gate.

“That looks like Holly’s car,” Detective Owens said, pointing to the back corner of a blue Beamer, all that was visible behind an overgrown hedge near the back of the property.

“Room number six,” Lila whispered, squeezing her eyes shut against the image playing behind them.

“Stay here,” Owens ordered, getting out. But she followed anyway.

Malone radioed for backup.

“And you—” Owens glared at the news team. “Stay out of the way or I’ll throw you in jail for obstructing justice.”

The news team gave the detectives a head start before closing in, leaves crunching with every step they took. Lila followed far more furtively.

“Police!” Malone yelled. “Open up.”

A woman screamed.

Malone kicked in the door. He and Owens entered, pistols drawn. The cameraman crowded closer. Holly Baxter screamed again.

Peering around everyone else, Lila stared at the naked man in the king-size bed. “Alex?”

“Lila, what the hell?” He grabbed the sheet to cover himself.

“You’re supposed to be in Dallas.” Her voice seemed to come from far away.

“You know him?” Lieutenant Owens asked, his gun still pointed.

Holly Baxter nodded slowly.

And Lila heard herself say, “He’s my fiancé.” Shuddering violently, she added, “My ex-fiancé, it would seem.”

Holly blushed scarlet. Alex looked shell-shocked. Somewhere, someone chuckled.

The room spun, and Lila spun with it. A strange silence was falling all around her. She felt herself falling, too, and all the while she was aware of the cameraman capturing everything on film.

CHAPTER 2

Six months later

The people gathered on the sidewalk in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Providence held morning newspapers and coffee mugs instead of microphones or cameras. They stood talking amongst themselves, two here, three there. There wasn’t a member of the press among them. Lila Delaney was old news.

Two teenaged boys carried boxes containing all that remained of her life and her work here in Rhode Island. Everything fit neatly in the back of one compact U-Haul trailer.

A cheerless gray drizzle began to fall, sending the neighbors back inside their well-kept, closely spaced houses, so that only Lila and the young men wrestling her garden statues up the ramp of the rented trailer saw the taxi pull to a stop at the curb. One of the teenagers whistled under his breath as a svelte blonde dressed all in black got out. If anyone had been looking, they would have seen Lila’s face brighten, too.

Penelope Bartholomew was always a sight for sore eyes.

Carrying herself with the regality inherent in the DNA of the naturally wealthy, Penelope, nicknamed Pepper years ago, stopped a few feet from Lila. “I go to Europe for eight months and all hell breaks loose for you.”

Lila still cringed at the memory of her fast, humiliating and thorough downfall.

“They really sold T-shirts that said My ex-fiancé, it would seem?” Pepper asked after the two old friends had hugged.

Lila shuddered. “Coffee mugs, too.” It had been the most coined phrase and biggest publicity circus since Who Shot JR? and Where’s The Beef?.

“I can’t believe you didn’t call me.”

“Would you have talked me out of it?” Lila asked.

“When have I ever been able to talk you out of anything?” Pepper’s bright pink umbrella went up like a splash of color in a black-and-white photograph. Holding the umbrella over both of them, she said, “I recall talking you into a few things, though. Remember the time I persuaded you to attend that Harvard Fly Club party with me?”

Who could forget? Convinced her boyfriend was cheating on her, Pepper and Lila had gone dressed as guys. When they’d gotten caught, Pepper’s parents had threatened to dissolve her trust fund over the incident. Although they would have liked to somehow blame it on Lila, they knew their daughter. Still, who could fault Mary Bartholomew for wanting her youngest to choose friends who came from old money and had grown up someplace suitable, such as the Cape or the Hamptons? Instead she’d brought home a waif from Chicago who had large hazel eyes and strange ideas about the universe.

Lila said, “We made quite an entrance that night, didn’t we?”

Pepper nudged her with one shoulder. “If it hadn’t been for your C cups, we would have fooled those fly-boys. But pooh grand entrances. I hear nobody makes grander exits than you, and on national television, no less.”

Some grand exit.

Shuddering again, Lila turned her attention to the clanking and banging coming from the trailer. “Please be careful with Apollo. He belongs to my mother.”

Pepper hid a yawn before saying, “There’s a twenty in it for whichever one of you would be so kind as to move my bags from that taxi to the backseat of Ms. Delaney’s car.”

While the quieter of the two fetched Pepper’s bags, his friend said, “Are you here for a séance? Or are you pa-psychic, too?”

His cocky grin faded fast when Pepper stared at his fly and chanted something that sounded like a Romany curse. He loaded the last statue by himself, and barely waited for Lila’s payment.

The moment the boys were gone, Lila said, “He has no idea you just told him you liked his shoes. For the rest of his life, he’s going to believe any problem he has in bed is your fault.”

“What man doesn’t blame poor performance in the bedroom on a woman?”

Lila considered several clinical responses, then dismissed them all. Why bother? Her license was useless, her clinic as broken as she was. Taking a moment to note the dark circles beneath her friend’s eyes, she said, “Mom sent you, didn’t she?”

“You know your mother.”

Yes, Lila knew her mother. Rose Delaney had come barreling into Providence in her ’89 Buick as soon as the media frenzy exploded last fall. Despite the fact that she was five feet tall and wore house sweaters when it was ninety degrees outside, she’d parked herself in a rocking chair in Lila’s living room, a big stick within easy reach, just in case a reporter tried to come through the door. She’d taken charge of the phone, too, and had shaken her fists at the curious passers-by, pointing her finger and shouting, “Shame on you.”

Lila hadn’t dared have the nervous breakdown she deserved, if for no other reason than for fear of further upsetting her mother. But the night she’d overheard Rose telling someone from the Leno show, “Be kind to my girl, she’s a sensitive, artistic soul,” Lila had pulled herself together and told her mother she had to go home.

She should have known Rose would call Pepper. But Lila’s intuition had self-destructed, or as one late-night comedian had put it, her mother-board had crashed.

“What are you really doing here, Pepper?”

“I’m going with you. Where are you going, anyway?”

“To Murray, Virginia, a little town in the Shenandoah Valley, but—”

“Murray, Virginia, prepare to meet two fierce, badass, former Radcliffe girls!”

Lila tucked her shaking hands into her pockets and refrained from stating the obvious: these days, she was about as fierce as a day-old kitten.

She stepped into the drizzle and opened the car door. Pepper lowered the umbrella and slid into the passenger seat in seemingly one motion. The woman was liquid. At least one thing hadn’t changed.

“You’re serious?” Lila asked before starting her car. “You flew three thousand miles to make this trip with me?”

“Don’t you want me to come with you? Far be it from me to go where I’m not wanted.”

Since when? Lila thought, but she said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Your arrival is the first thing that’s happened these past six months that has anything to do with what I’ve wanted.”

Shaking her head, Pepper said, “If your mother had her way, heads everywhere would roll. She’d start with the media, move on to the police, and then to some DA who doesn’t believe in ESP. She has another fate in mind for your lying, cheating, no-good former fiancé. I never liked Alex.”

Pepper didn’t like most people, a trait that stemmed from being born rich and never knowing whom she could trust. Such were the problems of the filthy rich.

Casting one last look at the brownstone that had served as her home as well as the place she’d counseled patients these past ten years, Lila pulled away from the curb. It wasn’t easy not to cry, but she’d already cried a river in that house.

“I believed I could help the police find that young woman,” she said.

“The little hussy, you mean.”

“I thought she was in trouble, and in pain. How was I supposed to know the reason she was writhing was because she was having sex with Alex?”

“It was probably more out of boredom than anything,” Pepper said dryly.

“You can’t imagine how much fun late-night comedians had at my expense.”

“Want me to put rats in their closets and spiders in their pantries?”

Lila hadn’t planned to smile. “You would do that for me?”

“What are friends for?” Lila and Pepper had spread their wings in opposite directions after college, but no matter how many miles or months separated them, something clicked each time they reunited. It was the kind of relationship they both accepted and appreciated. Moving her seat back to make room for her long legs, Lila’s friend—perhaps the only friend she had left on the planet, said, “There are roughly five hundred miles between here and Murray, Virginia. That should give you plenty of time to tell me what happened. Start at the beginning. And, Lila, try not to leave anything out.”

A horn blared. Lila jumped. And Pepper swore. In French. It was almost like old times.

“The speed limit on Skyline Drive is thirty-five, lady!” the balding driver of a huge motor home yelled as he passed.

Lila thought the horn was rude and the yelling was unnecessary. Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, she kept her eyes on the road and tried not to envision tumbling down the side of the mountain to a fiery death.

“We were just lapped by a camper van,” Pepper said drolly. “How humiliating. You should let me drive. The last time was a fluke. Now that I’ve adjusted to being back in the States, I’m sure I’ll remember to drive on the right side of the highway.”

Lila was tired, but she wasn’t that tired. Besides, there was no place to pull over. If she could have pried her hands off the steering wheel, she would have crossed herself. And she wasn’t even Catholic. “I’m no stranger to humiliation, remember? I’m going to be fine eventually.”

“Damn right you are.”

“This is just a setback. I’m relatively intelligent.”

“Relatively? You have a degree from one of the most prestigious universities in this country.”

“In my experience,” Lila said, “the two hundred million or so people living between New York and L.A. aren’t terribly impressed by Ivy League degrees these days.”

“What’s this world coming to?”

Now there was a question.

“But, Lila, you and I both know you didn’t do any of it for recognition.”

Lila shrugged, for none of it mattered anymore. Her visions were gone, her peers weren’t speaking to her, and no one wanted to be counseled by a woman who’d had no idea her fiancé was cheating. How could she have missed that?

She glanced in the rearview mirror. The eyes staring back at her were dull and somewhat blank.

The motor home took the next exit. Beyond it, the curves slackened and the highway began a gradual descent. The drive had been tedious and draining, but most of it was behind them, for they were over the mountains now, and were entering the Shenandoah Valley. Every inch of the descent brought a welcoming relief she hadn’t expected.

The windows were down, and Lila was vaguely aware of a warm breeze and the lush rustle of leaves recently reborn. It reminded her that all was not lost. She had a destination and a place to live. The knowledge brushed at the emptiness. She had a place to live.

“Tell me more about this windfall of yours,” Pepper said.

“There isn’t much more to tell. It still seems incredible to me that Myrtle Ann Canfield left her property and all her worldly possessions to someone she never even met.”

“Incredible? Maybe. Highly suspicious? Definitely.”

Lila didn’t like the sound of that, but she drove on, her little car diligently pulling her U-Haul trailer, down, down onto the rolling valley floor. There, two-lane roads meandered through quaint small towns named Fishers Hill, Lacey Spring, New Market and Weyers Cave. Between each town, roads curved and dipped past historic Civil War markers and poultry farms and apple orchards awash in white blossoms. It was all so utterly charming it almost made her believe it might be possible to find peace here.

She dug out the driving directions written in Myrtle Ann’s own hand, and followed them to Old Cross Road. A sign at the corner read Murray, Virginia, 2 miles. Below it, Welcome had been stenciled, as if in afterthought. And beneath that someone had tacked a handwritten cardboard sign. Parade Friday. 5:00. Don’t be late.

Lila stared at that welcome sign as if it had been written just for her. “I knew I could put my faith in Myrtle Ann.”

“I still say there has to be a catch.”

“I don’t think a dead woman would lie.” And then, because she wasn’t sure of much anymore, Lila added, “Do you?”

“That’s your area of expertise.”

Some expert she’d turned out to be. “Myrtle Ann Canfield came into my life just as she was leaving her own, and in doing so she breathed hope where I needed it most. Because of her generosity, I’ll live at The Meadows of Murray, the place Myrtle Ann cherished.” She pictured it in her mind, a tranquil gentleman’s farm with straight fences and rolling hills of pastures and a meandering stream. Perhaps she would raise horses, or maybe she would stretch a hammock between two trees and sleep the summer away. Sleep was definitely first on her agenda. Doctor’s orders.

“That old woman didn’t leave her property to just anybody,” Pepper said. “She left it to you. She must have seen you on television, and probably read about you in the checkout lane. I’m your new voice of reason, and I’m telling you, a person doesn’t leave her home and surrounding eighty acres to a perfect stranger out of the goodness of her heart. There has to be a string attached.”

Lila didn’t like the sound of that, either. Reminding herself that Pepper had always been a pessimist, she forced herself to focus on her driving as she followed Old Cross Road west. X marked the spot on Myrtle Ann’s map. A faded shingle bearing letters barely discernible as The Meadows marked it at the side of the road.

The driveway was long and narrow, flanked on both sides by wind-battered oaks and willows. Perhaps in another lifetime it had been a working farm. Decades of storms had taken a toll on aging trees, and time on rotting fences. Mother Nature had been responsible for those changes. Lila wondered who was responsible for the recent improvements, for some of the fallen limbs had been cut, split and neatly stacked, weeds mowed, new fence posts contrasting with old.

Chickens squawked, scattering out of the driveway as Lila approached. A goat stood watch from the roof of a rusting car. She counted two more junked cars nearly covered by rambling roses, and other mounds of debris hiding in weeds. Beyond the house were several outbuildings weathered to a dull gray. In the distance she saw more trees, a pond and what appeared to be a small cabin.

Pulling to a stop near the main house, Lila got out. She wondered if Pepper was right that Myrtle Ann Canfield had left everything to her for a reason. If so, what on earth could that reason be? Why not leave her beloved homestead to someone stronger, emotionally and physically? At the very least, why not leave it to someone with enough money to finish the clearing and mending?

Why her?

She tried to go to that place she used to go where the air held a low vibration and the universe made sense. Raising her gaze to the sky, she lowered it again, her inner voice mute and her heart beating too fast.

Insects flitted and a soft evening breeze fluttered weeds against her ankles. Spring had been stubborn about arriving in the northeast. Here it already felt like early summer. She stood in the fading twilight for a long time, staring at the house that was now hers. It was a sprawling two-story, its white paint peeling in places. Somebody had washed the windows and trimmed the rosebushes and planted flowers in front of the porch, as if in welcome. It was Lila’s second welcome to Murray.

She tried the bottom step. When it held her weight, she took the next one. At the top, she made a sweeping survey of every inch of The Meadows in plain view. It was nothing as she’d envisioned, and yet it was a peaceful place, and peace was all she wanted or needed.

Key in hand, Lila unlocked the door. Without saying another word, she and Pepper went in.

Joe McCaffrey had seen the lights in the main house last night. He supposed it was inevitable that the peace and quiet wouldn’t last, just as it was inevitable that the new owner would notice The Meadows had another resident.

He’d known Myrtle Ann had left the property to a woman from up north, a Yankee, she’d called her. That was all Myrtle Ann had had to say on the subject.

Seeing the new owner picking through boxes in her U-Haul trailer last night, he’d kept his lights off. This morning he faced the fact that he couldn’t keep his presence a secret indefinitely. Before she got spooked and called the police—that was all Joe needed—he washed up and changed. He even shaved, although why he bothered, he didn’t know. Evidently it was important to look his best while being evicted.

He’d been staying in this old cabin by the pond almost two years now. It had an antiquated refrigerator and stove, running hot and cold water, a huge monstrosity of a bed, one table, two chairs, one bathroom, one mirror, which was one mirror too many most days.

Staring at his reflection this morning, he rolled up his shirtsleeves, then held his right hand palm-side up, slowly squeezing his fingers into a fist around an imaginary ball. The tendons in his wrist tensed and the muscles in his forearms coiled in anticipation.

He could almost hear the fans, thousands of them. “J.J.,” they’d called him. His mother had called him Joe-Joe, short for Joseph John McCaffrey Jr. To everyone else who’d known him growing up in Murray, he’d always been Joe. Not just Joe. Joe-the-boy-wonder-McCaffrey, Murray High’s all-star pitcher. He’d starred in college, too, and then during a short stint in the minors, followed by his lifelong dream, the majors. One thing had led to everything, and everything was what he’d had: a beautiful wife, beguiling daughter, thriving career, home, hearth and happiness. It was all gone now, except his daughter, but she’d changed, too. Who could blame her? Murray, Virginia, wasn’t exactly a forgiving kind of town, and it sure as hell never forgot.

The signs marking yesterday’s parade route had gone up all over town a week ago. Signs were unnecessary. The route hadn’t changed in fifty years. But Murray was big on tradition, and it was a tradition to put up signs. The theme every year was the same, too. Peace in the valley. For a long time he’d been part of the tradition, riding in the parade with some of his old high school teammates when his schedule allowed.

He scowled, not because he’d lost his place in the limelight, but because he’d lost everything else. All because Noreen went missing one day. Husbands were always prime suspects in such cases. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t enough evidence for a trial. There wasn’t even a body. A trial wasn’t necessary in Murray, and living within spitting distance of the town’s suspicions was both his punishment and their comeuppance.

To hell with it and to hell with them.

Staring hard at his reflection, at his narrowed eyes and the furrow between them, at the grim line of his mouth and the stubborn set of his chin, he flung the towel over the bar and tucked in his shirt. Peace. His scowl deepened as he headed up to the main house to introduce himself.

Joe Schmoe.