Chasing Morgan (13 page)

“Wait,” Sam stopped her. “You have a sister? She isn’t mentioned in any of the information I read about the trial.”

“She didn’t live with us. My mother sent her to live with an aunt when I was about three and she was six. They were having financial problems and she convinced my father it was one less mouth to feed until they got back on their feet. I think by then Mom knew my father’s path led to destruction. For whatever reason, he let my sister go, but refused to let my mother send me.

“As it turns out, my sister lives outside San Francisco. I haven’t seen her in a while, but I keep tabs on her from afar.”

“The picture on the mantel is of her and her family. You two look a lot alike.”

“You think so? I took that photo last summer without her knowing. I wanted to see my niece and nephew. They’ve grown so much.”

Her sadness spoke volumes. She didn’t have her parents. She didn’t have her sister. “You don’t talk to your sister,” Sam said.

“She doesn’t want me around. She blames me for mother sending her away. After all, they must have had their hands full with a psycho like me. Obviously, she didn’t inherit the sight. Mother never told her anything about it, and my aunt didn’t have it either. My aunt never understood my mother. They never got along. She filled Jillian’s head full of crap about the long history of mental illness in the family. She told her it ran in the female line. My sister never considered that my mother sent her away to protect her.

“She grew up with my aunt, loved. She went to the best schools. She had a normal life. My mother did that for her. Jillian doesn’t see it that way. She’s never considered what her life would have been like had she lived with us. She’s never considered what it would have been like to see her father kill her mother and endure the trial.

“I called her on my niece’s first birthday. My sister was terrified her daughter inherited the family curse. She actually asked me if I heard voices and if they told me to do things.” She laughed. It was actually kind of funny in a sad way. “I asked if she heard voices, because she was the one talking crazy. Then, I took a look at my niece and told my sister what she wanted to know.”

“Is your niece psychic?”

“No, but she’s going to give my sister a good run for her money when she’s a teenager. She’s a good girl. She’ll be just fine. I made my sister wait a good five minutes for her answer. I paid my bills online and made out my grocery list while she sweated it out. As soon as I told her my niece didn’t have any psychic abilities, she hung up on me. I haven’t heard from her since. I respect her wishes. I let her know how to contact me if she needs me, or if there’s an emergency through my PO box and my website. But I don’t contact her, or the children, otherwise.”

“You don’t trust her with your phone number or address?” Sam asked, confused.

“Let’s just say as much as I want to have a relationship with her, I see a darkness around her that gives me pause.”

Sam couldn’t imagine not being able to trust the people closest to you, your family.

“If your sister lived with your aunt, then where did you live after the trial? What happened after the trial?”

“I grew up and my mother’s prophecy came true for the most part. Using my gift kept me apart from others. I couldn’t hide it like she could. I’ve never met another psychic who can do what I do. They see what I see and know the emotion that goes with it, but I actually take on the vision and the emotion. It’s hard to explain. They don’t necessarily control what they do. I can to some extent. I can usually figure out what someone is thinking. In some instances, I can get into their heads.”

“Like Tyler. He said you left his mind.”

“Tyler is a special case. He and I became connected in a way even I can’t explain. When I say I can get into their heads, I mean I can hear what they’re thinking. Telepathy.”

“So where did you grow up?”

“Here and there.” At Sam’s raised eyebrow, she gave in and elaborated. “When I left, I didn’t really have a destination in mind. I took the money my mother hid away from my father. I boarded a bus and headed out of West Virginia. I didn’t want to wait around to see if the town folk resurrected the witch trials.”

She stared off into the distance and remembered what it felt like to be young and scared. Nobody had ever understood her. Or even tried. Except her mother, and she was gone.

“I went to Atlanta. It didn’t take long to figure out libraries are a great place to hang out. Churches are another safe and quiet place. People usually stay to themselves and you have a roof over your head. Some libraries are open seven days a week. Churches have long hours and lots of places to hide and catch some sleep.”

“You’ve been on your own since you were twelve?”

“Yes. That’s not to say that I didn’t have some help along the way. A nun took a special interest in me. She helped me get my GED. Like I said, libraries are great places to hang out. I like to read, and I’m great on a computer. I studied for the GED and got it at seventeen. The nun hooked me up with a homeless shelter. I’d help out there in exchange for a bed. I’d go to street fairs and flea markets, set up a sign and a chair, and I’d give psychic readings for two dollars. I saved my money. I wanted to go to college, but I wasn’t eighteen, I was hiding from my father and his lawyer, and I didn’t have any money, a home, or any idea how to go about getting a school to accept me without transcripts.

“I like to read the newspaper. The financial section interested me, but I didn’t know anything about stocks. I studied how people bought and sold them. I learned how to read a financial report and determine if a company was doing well or falling short. I came across several articles about people who bought and sold stocks as day traders. I studied and decided if they could do it, why couldn’t I. All I needed was an account and a computer. Again, the library supplied the computer, and I set up an account at a local bank office and went online.”

“So, how’d you do?”

“I paid cash for this house and land. What do you think?”

Sam looked around the house again and had new admiration for her. She had raised herself and managed to educate herself well enough to succeed in a field that most people didn’t really understand, unless they had a financial advisor or their company’s 401(k) plan.

“Do you pick the stocks based on a vision?”

“No, not really. That’s a complicated question to answer. I do a lot of research on the company I’m going to buy. I have a kind of checklist of things I look for in a stock. Then there’s the instinct factor. If it’s a new company, I sometimes have a sense whether the company will do well or not. I’ve been wrong a time or two, but for the most part, between research and instinct, I’ve managed to make a good income. I have a place of my own now, and I can work from home.”

“So, when you met Tyler in that restaurant, where were you living?”

“At that time, no place in particular. That was just a chance meeting. Something about him called to me. When I saw what might happen to his sister, I had to tell him. His life wouldn’t have been the same. Your lives wouldn’t have been the same.”

“Why?”

“Because he would have burned out of the FBI after becoming disillusioned from his sister’s death. He wouldn’t have been there to help you with Elizabeth’s case. That could have changed the events that happened. You might not have met Elizabeth and that was meant to be. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Sam couldn’t deny it. He nodded his acknowledgement.

Sam rubbed the back of his neck and tried to assimilate everything he’d learned. “Tyler is part of the reason I wanted to find you. He’s headed down a road that will leave him unhappy. We can all see the train wreck coming and he insists on taking the train.”

Sam watched for a reaction, something that would indicate how she really felt about Tyler. She didn’t give anything away.

“He’s doing what he thinks will make him happy. He’s got his mind set on what he wants. He’s determined to get it no matter what it takes, or who gets hurt. She’s not for him. She knows it, too. They’re both going down a path they shouldn’t. Neither of them is willing to admit that being without the other would be a better choice than staying together and being miserable. Misery loves company, after all.”

“If she’s not for him, are you?”

“I don’t know. Tyler and I have a connection to each other that runs deep. We’re destined to cross paths again. That will happen very soon.”

“It started with the press conference. It kicked everything off. Your name went out to the masses and this guy started killing people. Plus, your father contacted Tyler. He’s trying to find you. He’s been out of jail for a while. He’s made it clear you’re a priority. I’ve been trying to find you and warn you.”

When she didn’t say anything, Sam asked the one question that nagged at him. “Why did saying your name with Tyler’s spark all this?”

“My father wants a reckoning. At least, that’s how he looks at it. He feels I owe him the time he’s lost. If I’d helped him, he wouldn’t have done what he did. He’s spent the last twelve years convincing himself I owe him. Jack and I have talked about this before. It’s about life and time and events.”

Whenever Jack saw her, their conversation and what she’d told him was never far from his mind. “You’re talking about someone in the family being hurt. When you meet up with Tyler again, something will happen to someone in the family, and you’ll stop it. It’s more than that though. All of these events are connected.”

Sam leaned in, ready to demand she explain.

Jack shook his head. “Don’t even try it. She won’t tell us who might be hurt, or what’s going to happen. It could change what she sees if she does.”

“What do you mean change it?”

Explaining herself and what she did was really time-consuming and frustrating.

“Sometimes, I can see future events. I’ve seen something happen, and I can intervene. The event will only happen the way I saw it if everything leading up to the event remains the same. Changing something could change the event, and then I won’t be able to stop what happens. In this case, I’ve managed to keep the events lined up, so that I can intervene.”

“Tell me how the press conference fits into this. You were upset about it,” Sam said.

“There are several events tied together. If the press conference happened, then I know something else is going to happen. I’m brought to San Francisco for another event and that will lead to yet another event. Change one, and change them all. I can’t risk one of the events, so I have to go along with the others.”

“You can’t risk the person who’s set to be hurt,” Jack said.

“No. I can’t risk that.” She smiled at him softly to reassure him. “There are several ways things could have gone. All I can tell you is that if my name hadn’t been mentioned in the press conference, you wouldn’t have the murders you do now. Also, the events that happen because of the murders wouldn’t happen. I’d still be coming to San Francisco for a couple of reasons, but now those reasons are tied to the murders, too.”

Confused, Sam’s mind couldn’t keep track of this event, that event, or the fact that they could happen or not. “You’re talking in circles. So, if your name hadn’t gone out to the press, the murders wouldn’t have happened. Tyler won’t like hearing that.”

“So, don’t tell him. He doesn’t need to know in order to do his job. Besides, he didn’t put my name out there. He did what he had to do to stop the men kidnapping women and using them as prostitutes.”

“He already has an idea that it’s because of him. The killer left Tyler a message. He’s after you, Morgan.”

“I know. I’ll be his last victim.”

The silence in the room was deafening. She didn’t often get a glimpse of her own life. She could see other people’s lives like movies in her mind, but not her own. Some kind of a cosmic safeguard. If she knew too much about her own future, then she’d spend too much time worrying about it rather than living her life for today. She’d had to learn that the hard way, through time and experience. She hadn’t seen her mother’s death coming until it was too late. If she had, she might have been able to stop it.

“I wanted to see you today to get you to stop focusing on finding me and get back to the case. I’ll be there soon enough.”

“When?”

“When the time is right.”

Jack felt for Sam. “Don’t even try to get her to tell you more. She’s stubborn.”

“I’m not stubborn. I can’t jeopardize the vision I had. If we change the future, and I don’t have another vision to tell me where to go, then I might not stop what happens to your family member. No one wants that.”

“Help me with the case. Give me something to work with, because right now we don’t have anything.”

“You’re looking for a man with thinning light brown hair. He’s about five-foot-five, very thin, and deceptively strong. He works with his hands fixing some kind of machines. I think they’re copy and fax machines. That won’t help you though. He’s good with computers and uses them to connect with people because he’s not very good at talking to people one-on-one. He’s a loner. He lives in an apartment that’s cheap and shabby. The furnishings are old, but he likes them because they’re his. There’s something about that I’m missing. It’s like I should know something connected to his sense of being on his own and having his own things. He has a sense of being independent and not answering to anyone. He’s thirty-seven, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense at this time in his life.” She shrugged her shoulders. She could only explain what she knew.

“He uses a double-edged butterfly knife. You know the kind that people in movies flip around with their wrist and the blade is revealed. He likes it because it makes him feel like he’s stronger and meaner looking than he is.”

“Is there anything else, physically about him?”

“He wears glasses with dark rims. Brown eyes, pale skin, like he spends his time indoors a lot. His face is ordinary. His appearance is ordinary. He’s the guy next door, who never got the girl, or played sports. He’s coasted through life under the radar because he doesn’t let anyone close, and he doesn’t put himself out there. He thinks others don’t understand him. Everyone else has what he wants. He feels like he’s been held back. I don’t know what it means, but when I see him, there’s a great weight on him. Something is over him and holding him down. I think the weight is his conscience. He either feels guilty for the murders, or something from his past.”