“What I mean is, is there anything that you dismissed as inconsequential, silly even? Ideas, feelings, suspicions. Given the nature of this investigation, is there anything?”
The waitress was behind the counter; there was no one else in the restaurant. Outside, the sky had gone a threatening white gray. Instead of censoring herself, she told him about Jackson’s premonition instigated by the news story he’d overheard regarding the two missing children, about Abbey’s dreams. She told him also about Jackson’s fixation on the missing man. He took a small notebook out of his pocket and started scribbling. No judgment. When she was done:
“Does that help?”
He shook his head and offered a slight shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not the psychic.”
Here he smiled a little, which made his face surprisingly warm and boyish. When she’d researched him, she’d learned that he was a former school sports star turned cop. There’d been some kind of problem that caused him to retire early—she wasn’t sure what. He was a big man, with graying brown hair, a ruddy complexion, and blue (or were they gray?) eyes, still handsome, virile. He was the kind of man that made women silly with the desire to please. And very married. Anyone could see that. It was one of the things that had always upset her about Wolf, even before she knew what it was. He never took himself off the market. He was always looking. Jones Cooper was taken—not that she was interested in him or anyone. Just an observation.
“I had already planned to go see Betty Fitzpatrick, mother of the other missing children,” he said. “And that news story about the developer caught my attention this morning.”
He was still writing.
“It’s not so different, what they do and what I do,” he said when he was done. She knew he was talking about Eloise and her granddaughter. “A lot of it has to do with instinct. Going where other people didn’t think or didn’t bother to go.”
She took a sip of her tea, which had gone cold like her soup.
“Oh,” she said, remembering. She dug into her bag and took out Abbey’s binky. It was so tattered and worn, so threadbare that it almost looked like a rag. Once pink with hopping bunnies, it had gone gray. It had been a gift from Merri’s mother, and it had been in Abbey’s crib since before she was even born. It became her most beloved binky; she never slept without it. Merri had slept with it every night since her girl went missing. “I brought this for Eloise—or I guess Finley. Please don’t lose it.”
It was a silly thing to say. A man like Jones Cooper never lost anything.
“The change purse I gave you,” she said. “It didn’t mean anything to her, just a trinket I bought her when we got to town. But this—”
She found she couldn’t go on.
“I’d like to make promises,” he said. His voice was soothing, even though his words weren’t. “But we both know I can’t do that.”
“I know,” she said.
This was rock bottom. That same man in the support group that she and Wolf had dutifully attended had said one evening: When you engage the psychic, you have allowed despair to separate you from reality.
She wondered if he was right. She really didn’t care. Honestly, whether it was self-delusion or not, there was a sparkle of hope that had been all but lost before she came to see Jones Cooper. And that was something, wasn’t it? Reality, especially Merri’s, was highly overrated.
“Will I get to meet her?” Merri asked. “Finley, I mean?”
Did she sound desperate? She probably did. She didn’t care about that either. That was the other thing she’d learned, that it didn’t matter a damn what people thought of you. The world was a hard, unyielding place no matter whether people thought you were a saint or a sinner.
He drained his water glass. “Do you want to?” he asked with a frown, as if he hadn’t been asked the question before.
“If you think it would help,” she said. “Would it help?”
“I’ll ask her how she wants to proceed,” he said. “I’ll say that Eloise didn’t often meet with clients.”
“Why not?” asked Merri.
“It just isn’t how she works,” he said. “It isn’t always about the person looking. That’s not always how she connects to the case. Maybe for Finley it’s different. Like I say, she’s untried.”
He was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing.
“And it’s hard for Eloise, I guess,” he went on. “She can’t always help, and it’s very disappointing for folks, difficult to accept. Some people become hostile; she’s had a lot of threats.”
She nodded her understanding; she could see it, remembering how bitter the man was in her grief-counseling group. How would she feel if this investigation led her back to the place where she was when she drove up here—sick with desperation, lost, afraid that the day Abbey was taken was the last of any livable life? Would she be angry, hostile? Would she level threats? No. Most likely, she would just turn to ash, blow away on the wind, unable to keep herself together even for her remaining child who needed her so badly.
FIFTEEN