“That certainly changes things. This Mandy Welsh?” Franklin asked, tapping the portrait of a pale girl with light hair and freckles.
“Yes,” Nessa said. “I don’t know who the third girl is. But her body is right next to Mandy’s in the water off Danskammer Beach.”
“And you saw them all in your dream?”
“It wasn’t a dream. They were there the day we found the first girl. What I saw—what I drew—were the three girls’ ghosts.”
“Ghosts,” Franklin repeated, and she nodded. It didn’t seem to be going as well as she’d hoped.
Feeling exposed, she fought the urge to flee. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Franklin responded with a snort. “You may be able to see ghosts, Nessa, but you’re terrible at reading minds.”
Nessa always remembered falling in love with her husband as a one-two punch. The first blow had come out of the blue the night she’d found the handsome young police officer praying over her dead patient’s body. That blow had knocked her over, but she’d gotten up and shaken herself off. If the Lord had seen fit to separate the two of them then, she could have gone on. The second punch arrived a few weeks later, when Nessa finally worked up the nerve to tell him about her gift. She’d agonized over the decision for days. Jonathan was a cop. He would want evidence, and she had none to provide. But she knew she couldn’t keep something hidden from the man she was coming to love. By the time she sat down to tell him, she’d worked out the answers to every question he might ask. She had photos of her grandmother and the scrapbook she’d inherited, which included her grandmother’s sketches pasted next to news clippings about the bodies she’d found. In the end, Nessa hadn’t needed them.
After she told him, Jonathan just sat there. “Okay,” he said.
“That’s it?” she asked. “‘Okay’? Don’t you have any questions?”
“I have lots, but we can get to them later,” he told her. “None of this changes anything. I knew you were special the day I met you.”
That was the moment Nessa knew she was down for the count.
“You believe me about the ghosts?” Nessa asked, and Franklin nodded.
He pulled in a long breath in a way that told her he had his own story to share, and took a seat on the edge of the table. “When I was a kid back in Brooklyn, I had to cross the Gowanus Canal every day to get to school. One morning I was walking over the Carroll Street Bridge, and I saw a woman standing in the middle, looking down at the water. I could tell from her face that something was wrong. I was about to pass by when she grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me over to the railing. She pointed down at the canal and asked me if I could see her. I looked and looked, and there was nobody there. But the woman on the bridge was insisting. She was almost hysterical. She kept saying, ‘There’s a dead girl down there in the water!’ I told her I couldn’t see a thing, and she started describing a girl like she was standing right there in front of her. Black hair. Yellow eyes. A birthmark shaped like Florida on her shoulder. I was thirteen years old, and the woman scared the hell out of me. So I ran. Later that day, as I was walking home from school, they were hauling a body out of the canal. It turned out to be a girl from my school. Her name was Linda Cavatelli, and she had black hair, yellow eyes, and a birthmark shaped like Florida on her shoulder.”
“You think the woman on the bridge could see the dead?”
“That’s what my mother said when I told her. She didn’t even seem surprised. She said she once had an auntie who was always seeing ghosts. Then she told me that if I’d been born female, I might have been able to see them, too. The ability usually runs in families, but boys never got it. I was annoyed as hell when I heard that. Wasn’t long afterward that I decided to become a cop. I figured if I couldn’t see dead people, the least I could do was help find out who killed them.”
“Seeing them isn’t as great as it sounds,” Nessa told him.
“Don’t I know it,” Franklin told her. “I haven’t come across any ghosts, but I have seen my share of the dead. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get used to it.”
Nessa turned back to the portraits lined up on the table. “It’s my job to find these girls’ families so their spirits can rest in peace. I need your help.”
Franklin picked up the sketch of the girl in the blue dress. “I’ll go back to the station now and post your drawing of our Jane Doe on the database. That’s all I can do for the moment.”
“What about the other girls?” Nessa asked.
“It’s unlikely their bodies would have lasted very long at the bottom of the sound,” Franklin said. “But I promised you I’d look, and I keep my promises. I found a fisherman with a sonar-equipped boat. He just updated to all the latest tech. If there are remains down there, we should be able to spot them.”
Nessa leaned forward and kissed him. When she pulled back, his eyes were wide with surprise.
“Sorry,” she said, horrified by her own behavior. “I shouldn’t have done that. I have a responsibility to these girls. I have to stay focused and I can’t—”
Franklin held up a hand. “It’s okay, Nessa,” he said. “But for the record, as soon as all this is over, you are more than welcome to do that again.”
Two weeks later, no bodies had been found. The girl in the blue dress was still sitting on Nessa’s couch, and the last thing on Nessa’s mind was kissing Franklin.
On Top of the World
Jo stared at the mirror. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn anything that wasn’t at least 70 percent spandex—or let her hair down from its perma-ponytail. The black halter sundress Harriett had pulled from her closet showcased Jo’s toned arms and complemented the wavy red hair that cascaded over her shoulders.
“I look hot,” Jo told the mirror.
“I’d fuck you,” Harriett agreed.
“You fuck everyone,” Jo said.
“Not true,” Harriett corrected her. “I’m actually quite discerning.”
“You got anything that would make me look that good?” Nessa asked.
“Yes,” Harriett said, calling Nessa’s bluff. “Have you decided to come?”