Lethal Outlook: A Psychic Eye Mystery Read online

  Lethal Outlook

  THE PSYCHIC EYE MYSTERY SERIES

  Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye

  Better Read Than Dead

  A Vision of Murder

  Killer Insight

  Crime Seen

  Death Perception

  Doom with a View

  A Glimpse of Evil

  Vision Impossible

  THE GHOST HUNTER MYSTERY SERIES

  What’s a Ghoul to Do?

  Demons Are a Ghoul’s Best Friend

  Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun

  Ghouls Gone Wild

  Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls

  Ghoul Interrupted

  Lethal Outlok

  A Psychic Eye Mystery

  Victoria Laurie

  AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, July 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Victoria Laurie, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Laurie, Victoria.

  Lethal outlook: a psychic eye mystery/Victoria Laurie.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58695-2

  1. Cooper, Abby (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Psychics—Fiction. 3. Women detectives—Fiction. 4. Weddings—Fiction. 5. Missing persons—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3612.A94423L48 2012

  813’.6—dc23 2012005922

  Set in ITC Galliard STD

  Designed by Alissa Amell

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For all the Teekos, Cats, and Candices in my life.

  Love you, my sisters!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Acknowledgments

  I love writing the acknowledgments for each book. It’s my chance to call out all the wonderfully special people in my life and tell them how much I love and appreciate them. Way better than a Christmas card, don’t you think?

  So, without further ado, allow me to dive right in!

  Thanks go to my wonderful and amazing editor, Mrs. Sandra Harding-Hull. You’re so good to me, my friend, and I appreciate so very much how wonderful you are to work with. May the years of our continued partnership be long and prosperous!

  Also, very special thanks to my fantabulous agent, Mr. Jim McCarthy. You’re my brother from another mother, guy, and I hearts you huge.

  Gratitude to the most amazing editorial assistant EVER! Ms. Elizabeth Bistro is a sheer delight to work with and talk to. Girl, you always come through for me, and I appreciate it!

  Must mention the fantabulous Ms. Sharon Gamboa here as well, because she works harder than anyone I know to support me and the books on the retail side.

  Extended thanks to all the rest of my NAL team who time and again I’m pretty sure I test the patience of. Thank you, guys, for putting up with me—Last-minute Laurie.

  Very special hugs go out to Katie Coppedge, who keeps the Web site rockin’ and helps with all those newsletters! She’s also, like, the nicest person on the planet and one of my very best friends, which I think helps a little.

  My sister Sandy Upham, who’s laugh I live to hear at least five times a week, and who constantly inspires me and feeds me fun little tidbits to use for Cat…who is loosely based on her. (Loooooosely!)

  Last, please let me rattle off a few of the names in my inner circle—these are such special people, as they continually support, encourage, listen to, and, yes, even ply me with cakeballs, and they are (in no particular order): Jackie Barrett; Karen Ditmars; Leanne Tierney; Nora, Bob, Mike, and Nick Brosseau; Shannon Anderson; Hilary Laurie; my nephews, Matt and Mike Morrill; Steve McGrory; Thomas Robinson; Silas Hudson; Suzanne Parsons; Drue Rowean; Betty and Pippa Stocking; John Kwiatkowski; Juan Tamayo; Rick Michael; Molly Boyle; and Martha Bushko.

  If I left anyone important out…apologies and cakeballs are on me.

  Chapter One

  It was four forty-five p.m. and I was still stewing. I’d been stewing a solid nine hours now, and I was likely to continue to stew for as long as it took for me to finish working, get home, confront my fiancé, and really give him a piece of my mind.

  The reason for said stew-fest was currently sitting on my desk, tucked into a beautifully polished beech-wood box, wrapped with a big red bow. It’d been waiting for me on the kitchen table with a love note and a fresh mug of coffee that morning.

  Still, I shook my head at the box and grumbled anew.

  The bell above the main entrance gave a jingle. “Abby?” I heard my business partner and best friend call from the tiny foyer.

  “In here!”

  Candice, fresh from the salon and looking more beautiful than any girl has a right to, sauntered into my office, took one look at my face, and said, “Cocktail?”

  I eyed the clock and sighed. “You have no idea how much I’d like to take you up on that, but I’ve got a client at five and I can’t leave.”

  Candice nodded like she already understood my woes. Coming in and sitting down across from me, she said, “Dutch?”

  Huh. Lookit that. She did understand. I waved at the polished box on the edge of my desk. “He gave me an early wedding present.�
�

  Dutch and I were getting married in exactly forty-five days, which, hopefully, would give me just enough time to walk down the aisle without the assistance of a cane, a goal my physical therapist and I were intent on making.

  Candice reached for the box, then hesitated. “May I?”

  “Knock yourself out,” I said with a sigh.

  My friend carefully slid the ribbon off and lifted the catch; opening the lid and peeking inside, she whistled appreciatively. “Nice,” she said.

  “Nice?” I snapped. “You think it’s nice?”

  Candice’s eyes darted quickly back and forth between the present and me, clearly not sure where to go with that. It didn’t matter. The floodgates had opened, and out came my inner tsunami. “He gave me a gun, Candice! A GUN! What kind of a man thinks it’s appropriate to give his soon-to-be bride a lethal weapon for a wedding gift?”

  Candice smirked and ducked her chin. “A Republican?”

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously and nodded. “Yeah. And a gun-totin’, NRA-lovin’, small-government-supportin’ one at that!” (You’re probably not going to be surprised to hear that my politics lean a weeeeeeeeensy bit more to the left.)

  Candice chuckled and lifted out the offensive object to consider it. “You know, Abs,” she said in that irritatingly calm way she had, “I could totally see your point if this weren’t such a sweet weapon—for you in particular.” I opened my mouth to spout new protests to the contrary, but she cut me off. “Let me finish! This is a .38 Special, right?”

  I clenched my jaw, rolled my eyes, sighed heavily, then nodded.

  “It’s the new Bodyguard Smith and Wesson, right?” Candice added. She released the chamber to check for bullets, and, finding none, closed the chamber and pointed the gun at the wall to her left.

  “Yeah. So?”

  Candice pushed a little knob at the top of the grip and a red dot appeared on the wall. She whistled again. “Integrated laser and a polymer grip. Sundance, this is one sweet weapon.”

  “You want it?”

  Candice laughed lightly before tucking the gun back inside the box. “I can’t think of a better weapon for you, honey.”

  “Candice, you’re supposed to be on my side.”

  “I am on your side! Abs, don’t you think Dutch already knows how much you hate guns?”

  Recent enthusiastic history with a CIA weapons trainer aside, I had an intense dislike for guns and avoided handling them at all costs. “I seriously do hate them,” I said.

  “Exactly.” Candice leaned back in her chair like I’d just made her whole case. “You make no secret about it, as Dutch well knows.”

  My brow furrowed. “So he gave me something he knows I’ll hate just to show me how much he cares?”

  Candice grinned. “No, fool. He gave you something he knows will protect you, in spite of the fact that you hate it. And he got you a gun that’s lightweight, compact, easy to load, absorbs recoil, and has an integrated laser so that even you couldn’t possibly miss. Don’t you get it, Abs?”

  “I seriously don’t.”

  Candice leaned forward to rest her elbows on my desk. “Would you say that Dutch spends a fair amount of time worrying about you?”

  I scowled at Candice. She knew dang well Dutch spent much more than a “fair” amount of time worrying about me. He once dubbed me Trouble’s Mecca. “Yeah. So?”

  “And it’s not without good reason, right?”

  “It’s not like I go looking for trouble, Candice!” I was getting a little irritated with this line of questioning.

  “Of course you don’t,” she said calmly. “But you have to admit that your line of work has gotten you into some pretty dicey situations.”

  “Oh, for cripes’ sake! I’m a professional psychic. Last time I checked, that wasn’t one of the top ten most dangerous jobs.”

  “You’re a professional psychic who now freelances for both the FBI and the CIA. You’re also a business partner to one badass private eye,” Candice said, bouncing her eyebrows.

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that the panic button on your key fob and that little can of pepper spray you carry around in your purse aren’t enough to protect you from the very dangerous criminals you encounter these days, toots. It’s way past time you grew a pair and got yourself armed. Dutch knows you would never properly arm yourself on your own, and he likely also knows that if he just randomly brought you home a gun, you’d take it back within the hour. So instead, he’s given it to you wrapped in a big red ribbon of love as a wedding present, because he’s telling you he worries and he wants his wife to be safe. And to make it as painless as possible, he’s gotten you a really sweet weapon tailor-made for you.”

  I stared hard at her, then at the box, then back at Candice. “How come you know what Dutch is thinking better than I do?”

  Candice’s grin widened. “Because I’m also a gun-totin’, NRA-lovin’, small-government-supportin’ Republican, just like him.”

  I felt the corners of my mouth quirk too. “I’m surrounded by the enemy.”

  Candice leaned over the desk to squeeze my hand. “Give it time; we’ll bring you around.”

  She then got up to walk out of the room, only to return a minute later with a white box I recognized. “These should fit,” she said, opening the lid to my present and taking out the gun to load it with hollow points.

  “You keep bullets in your office?”

  Candice continued to load the gun without looking up. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Nooooooo,” I said with a laugh. Then I started to feel like I was being handled by my business partner and fiancé. “You really don’t need to do that,” I told her.

  Candice paused to eye me critically. “An unloaded gun does you no good, Sundance. Keep it in the box if you want, but keep it loaded.”

  At that moment we heard the bell above the front door give another jingle. Candice pumped the last bullet into the chamber and tucked the weapon away quickly. “Better let you get to your client,” she said, handing me my cane from where it was leaning against the wall.

  I got stiffly to my feet, thanked her, and took the cane, wincing with that first step, which was always the most painful.

  My body was still recovering from an awful accident I’d had several months earlier when Dutch and I had been on a mission for the CIA. The mission had ultimately been a success, but we’d both nearly died in a plane crash. We’d been incredibly lucky to survive, but I’d broken my pelvis in three places. The doctors had warned me that my recovery would be slow and often uncomfortable. I hadn’t realized how much they’d sugarcoated it until I started my physical therapy. I was in near-constant pain and made progress in centimeters. There were many days, in fact, when I believed my recovery moved backward. It was one reason I was glad that my regular day job of doing psychic readings for a growing list of clients allowed me to set my own schedule, and I could take plenty of breaks and days off if needed.

  I hobbled out to the waiting room and was nearly brought up short. Ms. Smith—my client—stood nervous and fidgety just inside the door. She was adorned in a large Sunday hat, red wig, Jackie O sunglasses, and bright red lipstick. Even though it was nearly eighty degrees outside, she had on a trench coat, scarf, and black leather gloves.

  I wondered if she had some sort of hypersensitivity to the sun, because her only exposed skin was on her nose, mouth, and chin, but the wig was throwing me, and it was so obviously a wig. “Ms. Smith?” I asked.

  Her face turned toward me, and my sixth sense picked up the waves of anxiety radiating off her. “Yes,” she said; then she seemed to search for something to add but settled for, “Yes,” again.

  A lot of clients get very nervous when they first come to see me. So many people have a fear about what we psychics can see or predict. And the reputation for psychics as bad-news bearers is not without some merit: I’ve met several “professional” readers who dig deep for anything alarming they can say
to their clients just to make themselves look “gifted.” It irritates me no end.

  “It’s great to meet you,” I said calmly, extending my hand. Sometimes the best way to battle someone else’s fear is to simply remain as composed and professional as possible. She took my hand, pumped it once, and let go.

  “We’re right in here,” I offered, turning to lead her down the hall, deeper in the suite of offices.

  After I’d been released from the hospital, my wonderful friend and business partner had practically (literally) hauled me out of bed with the goal of finding the perfect office space in which to hang our respective shingles. While it was true that Candice and I teamed up quite often on cases she acquired, we each still retained a bit of autonomy with respect to our individual businesses.

  So we needed a setting that could accommodate all three scenarios—my readings, Candice’s private eye business, and the joint investigations we partnered up on.

  After a week of looking (and some complaining on my part…cough, cough), we’d finally found a gorgeous suite of four offices and a cozy waiting area in a three-story professional building on Austin’s north side. The new digs were located just off Highway 360—which was easily the most beautiful highway in all of Austin—and the road leading up to our building ascended straight into the hills, giving us spectacular views from every window.

  I’d fallen in love with the space the moment I set eyes on it, and Candice and I had hung our shingles ten seconds after signing the lease. I’d finished decorating my little suite only three weeks earlier and was encouraged that my reputation and marketing efforts were starting to pay off—I had a small list of referrals, which was growing day by day. I was also kept afloat by the cold-case work I did freelancing as a consultant for the FBI. All in all, I was starting to eke out a real living again, and that felt awesome.

  I led my client into the room I used exclusively for conducting my readings and felt the lovely energy of the space waft over me.

  I’d had the space painted a dusky rose, the shutters were chocolate brown, and espresso high-back leather wing chairs were arranged to face each other. I’d kept the room fairly spartan, with only two accent tables, a credenza, and some choice crystals placed in small artistic clusters about the room.