3. Admit it. She’s a Dick

As I slid out of Declan's tall truck, Detective Hernández slammed her door and came around the front of her car to meet us. She was my age—twenty-eight. We'd gone to school together. We'd known of each other but hadn't been friends. I was the weirdo with long, curly hair that was a mélange of brown, red, and gold. People had been accusing my mom and then me of dyeing my hair ever since I was a toddler.

Sofia Hernández, though, had been cool and liked by just about everyone. She was athletic, studious, and seemed genuinely kind. As I'd been on the outskirts of high school society, though, what did I know? The student who wears gloves all the time and occasionally drops to the ground in a seizure-like vision isn't on everyone's invite list.

She checked her watch. "Thank goodness. I was falling asleep."

"You should have called. I could have given you our ETA," I said, coiling up my hair and stuffing it down the back of my top. The wind was coming in strong off the ocean.

"I did. It went to voicemail. I was giving it another thirty minutes and then heading home." Hernández ran a hand over her dark brown hair, checking the thick bun at the base of her skull, and nodded hello to Declan. She had big brown eyes framed by dark lashes and a cupid's bow mouth, one she held in a firm line.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked. Yup. Two missed calls. "Sorry. We were driving back from San Francisco on the coast route. There are spots without cell service."

"It's fine," she said. "Kind of relaxing. Just sitting in the dark, listening to a podcast. Anyway, I wanted you to know a woman washed ashore today. She's been identified as Pearl Corey."

"Oh." I went to sit on the steps of the gallery. "I knew it was coming. I saw her death. Still, it hits hard when my visions become reality. We weren't close or anything, but she was a sweet little cousin I watched grow up at family functions." I looked up at the detective as Declan sat beside me, wrapping an arm around me. "You've told her mom?"

Hernández nodded.

"I'll tell mine. We'll go visit Aunt Hester." I thought about it a moment. "You didn't sit outside my gallery waiting to tell me this."

The detective shook her head. "I'm sorry for your loss, but I also want your help. She's been in the water too long. They can't get any evidence off her body at this point." A strand of long hair came loose from her tight bun, and she tucked it behind her ear.

"Come on. Tell me you're not asking me to read my poor dead cousin?"

Hernández didn't flinch. "I'm asking you to read your cousin. I want her killer caught before he does this again. And I waited here because I have a friend who's a coroner. She's on the nightshift. Hopefully she won't be weird about me bringing a consultant. The body's been processed. It's about to be turned over to her mother. We only have tonight to do this. If you agree, that is."

"She hasn't eaten," Declan interjected. "Maybe we should—"

I patted his knee. "It's better if I don't. Less to come back up if the vision is bad."

He pulled me closer. "Right."

"It's about a thirty-minute drive from here. I can take you and bring you back—if you agree," she said.

I looked up at Declan and patted my backpack. I appreciated that he cared and wanted to protect me. It was an unusual experience in my life, but I had to go.

He nodded. "I'll drive." He took my gloved hand and pulled me up.

We let Hernández lead the way. Traffic was already light downtown and became nonexistent once we headed away from the city center. She eventually pulled over in front of a squat, nondescript white building with lettering that read Monterey County Coroner.

When the detective got out, she pocketed her phone and pointed to the front door. "Dr. Landscombe will let us in. I called and explained the situation on the way over. I had to do some arm twisting."

Declan and I followed her up the cement walkway. I didn't want to be here. Places like this were crawling with horrible memories, just waiting for me to accidentally brush a wrist or ankle against a doorknob or chair leg, waiting for me to relive someone's greatest trauma.

A pale woman with pinched features, wearing a white coat, walked down the hall toward the glass front doors. She looked up at six-foot-six, bearded Declan and hesitated. Hernández waved and the woman started moving again, pushing open the door.

"Sorry," the doctor said. "I was expecting two women." She gave Hernández a look and said, "Come on, then," leading us down a dingy white corridor. One of the fluorescent panels overhead flickered. This was the beginning of a horror movie.

I found Declan's hand and held on tight, wishing like hell I was in my studio in my comfy chair, a hot cup of tea warming my hands…

"—middle of the room. I'll be over here. I won't leave her unattended." The doctor wasn't happy about any of this. She wanted to help her friend, wanted the killer caught, but it was obvious this was really unorthodox and made her uncomfortable.

"Understood," the detective replied. "I appreciate you doing this."

The coroner nodded and moved to a desk to work.

I handed Declan my backpack and moved to the center of the room, to the metal gurney holding a body covered by a sheet. The tips of two fingers stuck out from under the sheet. Blowing out a breath, I started to tug at a glove and then Declan was there, placing a chair beside me.

"Good thinking." I sat, pulled off the glove. When I did a reading, I centered my thoughts and thought of a question. Otherwise, I could end up seeing her Christmas pageant when she was seven. I needed to know about Pearl's murder, so I thought of that and then touched a finger to her pinky.

Ankles are yanked up and she slides under the water. He holds her legs as she struggles, unable to right herself and breathe. Craig stares down at her, impatient, a look of annoyance on his face. She grasps the edge of the tub, trying to pull herself up. Shaking his head, he snatches one of the crutches she left leaning against the wall and flips it over, jabbing it into the tub. The curve of the shoulder support pins her neck to the floor of the tub, crushing her larynx. Head throbbing, lungs ready to burst, she pushes at the crutch, but he's too strong. Her vision constricts and finally he smiles down at her. Choking, inhaling water, her thrashing is no match for the one who said he'd love her in sickness and in health.

Curled in on myself, head throbbing, gasping for breath, I felt the hard linoleum floor under my shoulder, my hip. Declan was hunched over me, trying to figure out how to help. I moved to my knees, ungloved hand fisted against my chest as I desperately sucked in as much air as I could. Hernández crouched beside me, asking how she could help.

Lifting my head, I stared through my curls at the doctor, who watched from behind her desk. Hanging onto Declan's arm, I pulled myself up, still staring at the cow as her chair shot out from under her, dumping her on the floor. Hernández stood to help her friend, took a step in her direction, and then looked back at me, brow furrowed.

"That's not Pearl," I said, voice hoarse, having just been strangled and drowned in that vision. "This is the body of a woman drowned in the tub by her husband Craig." I forced myself to slow my breathing.

Declan grabbed my sleeve when I almost touched him with my ungloved hand. He pulled the glove from my pocket and handed it to me.

"Did you do that?" The detective asked her friend, looking well and truly pissed off.

"I told you before," Dr. Landscombe said, "there's no such thing as psychic ability. I don't want your reputation in the department ruined by a con woman."

Glancing up, I saw Declan's eyes had gone wolf gold. I shook his sleeve until he looked down at me. My back to the other women, I mouthed, your eyes.

He shouldered my backpack, wrapping an arm around me. "I'll take you home."

"No. Wait," Hernández said. "I'm sorry. I didn't know she was going to do that. Please. I really do need your help with your cousin's case."

The coroner climbed to her feet. "The victim is her cousin?"

"Yes," Hernández said. "This is Arwyn Corey,"

Declan and I still had our backs to the women, but I could see his eye color was darkening to his natural brown.

The detective moved so she could see me. "I really am sorry. Please don't go yet."

I thought about Pearl and Aunt Hester. Sighing, I nodded and then turned to Landscombe. "Don't fuck with me again." I stared her down until she finally nodded.

"But you're wrong," she gloated. "That one was an accidental drowning in the tub. She fell asleep."

"No. She didn't," I said to Hernández. "She was taking a bath, eyes closed, and her husband grabbed her by her ankles, yanking her up so her head went under the water. She struggled, trying to get out." I glanced at Landscombe. "If you check her throat, you'll see bruising that has nothing to do with drowning. He used the curved, under-arm cushion of her crutch—she'd twisted her ankle badly on a hike—to pin her neck to the bottom of the tub and then watched her die. She won't have too much water in her lungs because he was crushing her trachea as he killed her."

Hernández looked at Landscombe, waiting for confirmation.

The doctor shrugged one shoulder. "I didn't do that autopsy. I don't like this, Sofia. I don't believe any of it. I checked the computer as that one was doing her routine to see who was on the gurney. It was ruled an accidental death."

Hernández took out a small notebook from her jacket pocket. "What's her name?"

"Trisha Hall," Landscombe and I said at the same time.

The detective turned back to me. "Her husband killed her?"

"Yeah," I said. "Craig. There was no emotion. He just wanted it done. Check the prints on the crutches. His'll be in a weird place, gripping the bottom of the crutch. There'll probably be bruising around her ankles that, again, have nothing to do with falling asleep and sliding into a bath."

After a charged moment, the doctor said, "It's true." Her voice was low and shocked as she stared at her computer screen. "Her hyoid was fractured." She touched the fingertips of one hand to her forehead. "How could he have missed that?"

The coroner stood, staring down at the linoleum, shaking her head. "And how could you have known?" she said, mostly talking to herself.

"I'm not here to perform party tricks," I said, voice still raspy. "Get Pearl."

Landscombe didn't like being wrong, didn't enjoy being ordered around, and clearly resented me. Whatever. She stalked across the room, moved Trisha's gurney, checked the tag number on another, and wheeled over Pearl.

Was it wrong that I wanted to punch the doctor in the back of the head? Because I really wanted to.

I sat again and took off my glove. This time, I let my finger hover right above the bloated, discolored skin of an elbow barely sticking out from under the sheet. The body had been washed, but she still smelled of the sea. This was Pearl. Blowing out a breath, I touched her skin.

A quiet coffee shop. Pearl, her hair still long and black, sits alone drinking cocoa, her textbook open, her muffin forgotten. She stops to type into her laptop and then resumes reading.

A handsome young man with chiseled features, dark hair, blue eyes, lightly tanned skin leans on the empty chair across the table and asks if he can take it.

She nods, confused, her face flushing, her Corey green eyes guarded. There are lots of empty tables. Why ask for hers?

He lifts the chair and turns, but then seems to change his mind and turns back, replacing the chair and sitting. Looking at her textbook, he asks if she's studying for the Anthropology midterm as well. She nods, unused to the attention.

Smiling, he leans in and asks if she has Professor Putnum. She shakes her head. He then launches into a tale about the professor, the assistant, and a couple of particularly ridiculous students.

Pearl laughs in sputters and starts. It's like a rollercoaster. She doesn't have time to catch her breath, to get used to the uninterrupted attention of a charming, handsome man. It's all going too fast, and while it's fun, she feels out of control.

No studying is done. He sees a friend and has to run but not before asking her to dinner. She nods, the rollercoaster careening around a curve. They were supposed to meet in the quad, but when she answers a knock on her dorm room door, there he is, throwing her off yet again. She planned to calm herself on the walk, maybe call home to talk with her mother about the garden, but he's already here.

They take the stairs down, avoiding the elevators, and leave without anyone noticing. Pearl is used to not being noticed but is surprised that no one calls out to him. She assumes they'll eat on campus, but instead he walks her to his very expensive sports car. None of this is real. How is she the one with the hot guy in the fancy car?

He takes her to a little bistro. She feels out of place. She and her mother aren't poor, but since the divorce, it's been tighter. Dad, like others in his family, has money, but she and mom have been on their own a long time. She brings forty dollars on the date, thinking that would be enough if they split the bill. With the prices on this menu, she'll need to use her emergency card and then explain to her mother what happened. Mom won't be mad, but it makes Pearl uncomfortable.

Still charming, he holds up most of the conversation with stories about trips he's taken. The rollercoaster jolts forward up a long incline before teetering on the precipice and then racing down, her stomach dropping out from under her. When he kisses her at the end of the night, it feels like an out-of-body experience, like she's looking down from above, thinking her shoes are stupid and wondering why he would choose her.

He touches her hair, telling her how beautiful it is, and then mentioning that she might look even better as a blonde. Yeah, he says nodding. Short blonde hair.

And that's how it goes for two weeks, him showing up when she isn't expecting him, and him sweeping her off her feet while oh-so-subtly suggesting how she could improve. She uses a chunk of her savings to go to the salon he recommends to have her hair cut and colored. She hates it, hates being so visible as the rollercoaster drops again.

He's so pleased when he sees that she's changed for him, he takes her to a fancy dinner at a restaurant on the water. She orders scallops because they're small and he makes her stomach wobble. He orders wine. She doesn't like it, but she keeps sipping, as it gives her nervous hands something to do and allows her to hide, however briefly, behind the glass.

After dinner, they walk on the beach, each holding onto their shoes in one hand and each other with the other. They walk for quite a while. Pearl's teeth are chattering. Instead of turning around, though, he laughs and points up ahead to a place he wants to show her. The cliffs are high beside them, and she sees no one else on the beach, it being such a cold, windy night.

Pearl stops. The tide is coming in and icy seawater is washing over her already frozen feet. He laughs again, tugging her along. It's not much farther. They round a huge boulder and are out of view of most everything. Pearl is wondering if he's going to kiss her again. He hasn't since that first night.

When he moves in close, she is caught between excitement and terror, the rollercoaster going up again. His fingertips brush the long column of her neck. Leaning in, he bypasses her lips and instead whispers, "I've wanted to do this for a long time."

She smiles, but then his fingers tighten on her neck. She can't believe it. Doesn't fight. She stares into his dead eyes, uncomprehending. When he smirks, kicking her feet out from under her, she panics, clawing at his hands, even as black spots blur her vision.

She barely registers the cold when he drags her to the water, shoving her head under as he squeezes the life out of her. The out-of-control rollercoaster slams into a turn and goes flying off into the dark. The last thing she sees is his triumphant smile as he scrubs at his face, washing it away until there are only dead eyes staring into her lifeless ones.