Celeste Files: Unlocked Part 2

"But you felt as if the mother knew the person with her. Even if she can't tell you who it is, she could tell you what they were after."

Her flesh and blood.

The brief memory of the woman's thoughts should have made her skin crawl with disgust. As a mother, she couldn't imagine having her child hate her enough to kill her. Only, something wasn't right. When the woman had thought those words there had been a sense of pleasure and relief, not the pain and disappointment Celeste would have expected.

She blew out a breath. "I'll try," she said, then closed her eyes and concentrated on the blanket she held, on the woman she'd become. Her mind wandered to Kelly and Avery, then to the bakery where she should be right now, and eventually to her husband, who would be home this evening. She couldn't keep this secret from him and would need to tell him that she'd had a vision. How he would take it would- "You're not focusing," Maxine said, her voice holding disapproval. "How have you done readings in the past?"

"Like this. I held an object, thought about it and usually something came to me. Or if someone was missing jewelry or their dog, I might've waited until I went to sleep. I used to get a lot of my visions while I was asleep."

Maxine's eyebrows rose in distaste. "Jewelry or a dog?"

"Understand something," Celeste said, defensive. "I grew up in a very small town where everyone knew your business. Most people didn't believe in me, so it wasn't like I was going to set up shop and offer psychic readings. First off, my gift was never that strong. Secondly, I was never comfortable with the idea of giving a paying customer false hope, or finding something in their past or future that was better left unknown." She smoothed the blanket. "So, yeah. I stuck with lost objects and even a dog. What do you use your gift for?"

"You're here to find a way to tap into your abilities and learn to control them, not to discuss me." She smiled. "I apologize if I offended you. Did you find the dog?"

"Yes."

"Good. I love animals, but I travel too much to keep one." Maxine took the blanket. "Please close your eyes and place both feet on the floor."

"Why?" Celeste asked, uncrossing her legs.

"Your methods aren't crude, but they could be more refined. This is an exercise in grounding yourself and reaching into the side of your brain that holds the answers you seek. Now close your eyes and image that you are a tree," Maxine said, her tone soothing. "Your feet are the roots, buried deep underground. The soil is rich and filled with nutrients. Your legs and body are a solid trunk. Feel the energy of the earth as it runs up your body, strengthening your spirit. Visualize your arms as branches. Feel the effervescence of the thick green leaves and reach for the sky. The sun connects you with the spirits and energy around you. Take that energy with grat.i.tude and fill your limbs, your solid trunk and your roots with the deep connection of the spirit world. Dig deep into the soil and-" Maxine sighed. "Your eyes are supposed to be closed."

"Right, and I'm supposed to be a tree. Only rather than connecting with some spirit world, my mind is focused on the big nest resting on one branch and the noose hanging from the other one." She crossed her legs again. "Sorry, I just don't think I'm that deep."

When Maxine laughed, ten years fell from her pretty face. "I think you're deeper than you realize. But I understand. Meditation isn't for everyone." She sat back in her chair, then reached for the paper Celeste had brought with her. "What are these markings?" she asked, holding it up for Celeste to see.

"Just scribbles," she replied, and looked to the unicorn clock. Her appointment with Maxine had done little to help her and she needed to head into the bakery.

"Do you do this often?"

"Scribble?" She shrugged and thought about it. "I suppose, mostly when I'm thinking."

Maxine grinned, then rose from the chair. "Excellent." She moved across the room to a Victorian desk that looked as if it were worth more than her Jeep. "I knew a woman whose psychic accuracy was eerily precise. She was very sought after by people searching for comfort, or who wanted to connect with lost loved ones or find answers to their future." She retrieved a legal-sized notepad with yellow lined pages, along with a pen. "Anyway, this woman would hold an object that belonged to her client in one hand and a pen in the other. As she connected to the energy surrounding her client, she would scribble. I believe her pen and paper were what kept her grounded and in control."

She handed Celeste the pen and paper, then the blanket. "Let's give this a try. I want you to stare at the scribbles you make, follow the loops and random design, and imagine each stroke of the pen as a line of energy."

Antic.i.p.ation rushed through Celeste. "This I can do. Actually, I did it before during the serial killer case in Wisconsin. I was absently doodling while I was on the phone, but once I ended the call and looked at the paper, I was able to connect back to one of the victims." She rested the pad on her thigh and held the pen over it. "It was a quick image, but it helped us locate the victim."

"Excellent. But this time, focus on the woman who poured so much love into making the blanket."

Celeste wrapped her left hand around the blanket, then, with her right hand, pressed the tip of the pen to the paper. With Maxine watching her, she grew uncomfortable. Other than falling into a trance in front of John, she'd never tried to gain a reading while someone was in the room with her. "Would you mind leaving for a few minutes? Maybe having an audience is what's stymying me."

"Of course," Maxine said, without taking insult. With her teacup in hand, she left the room, closing the parlor doors behind her.

Celeste looked around, her gaze touching on the variety of unicorns before it once again settled on the gnome. She stared at the figurine and the way the icing dripped along the top of the cake. She pressed the tip of the pen to the paper, the same color yellow as the icing, and began to mimic the flow of the drips. She moved the pen over and over, then up and around. Imagined the loops and curves were energy. They la.s.soed her, captured something inside of her and tugged, drawing her deeper into a shadowy tunnel. Fully aware and curious to discover what was at the end of the tunnel, she drew circles. Faster and faster, imagining the ink flying from the page. Twisting, turning, sucking the energy around her into the center of the vortex. She visualized the blanket, watched it float on the ink-stained wind, saw it twist and turn. In her mind, she stretched for it, but it blew inches out of reach. She quickly followed the blanket, never losing sight. When it stalled on the breeze, she leaped for it, wrapped her hand around its edges and let it take her for a ride. Deeper into the vortex, closer to the opening at the end until- Neil Diamond's Love on the Rocks played on the stereo. His gravelly, yet smooth voice filled the softly lit room as a woman wearing a beautiful amethyst-colored scarf tied fas.h.i.+onably over her head sat on a leather sofa crocheting. Pink yarn lay in her lap as she hummed along to the music, her nimble fingers moving the crochet hook with ease.

Celeste held the blanket close to her heart, stepped out of the shadows and neared the woman. Her humming grew louder, and her inner thoughts whispered around with a melody of their own. But when the song ended, and the record player switched alb.u.ms, the whispers grew stronger, more concise. Then abruptly halted when a new song began. The woman stopped crocheting. A sad, wistful smile played across her lips as Helen Reddy's You and Me Against the World drifted through the room. Celeste's throat tightened and tears misted her eyes as the woman's sadness and regret filled her heart and soul. The woman closed her eyes and leaned her head against the sofa's armrest. Her whispered thoughts turned into fuzzy memories...

A cute young girl wearing denim bellbottoms and a tank top. Her long straight hair blowing in the breeze as she lay on a blanket in a field of gra.s.s and wildflowers. Fear flitted through the girl's belly as she touched her slightly rounded stomach. The image zipped forward, to a stark white hospital room. An unsmiling woman with a horrible bowl-cut hairstyle and ridiculously large-framed gla.s.ses glared at the same girl, whose pale face twisted with pain.

A baby cried and the girl let out a sob.

The woman with the gla.s.ses nodded to a nurse. "Get her out of here."

"No, wait," the girl begged. "Mother, please let me hold her."

"No good will come from it. The child doesn't belong to you. Hopefully you won't have stretch marks to remind you of your sins. Meanwhile, I suggest you pray to G.o.d for guidance."

As the Helen Reddy song played, the woman on the couch let out a wistful sigh. Several other images emerged...a beautiful wedding, honeymoon, another baby, then another...

The woman's memories fast-forwarded... Celeste now stood in a doctor's office.

"I'm so sorry," the forty-something doctor said to the woman. "Even with chemo and radiation, I don't think your body will last more than three years."

Helen Reddy continued to sing about how her child would carry on when she was gone. Sadness, so raw, so heart-wrenching, wrapped itself around Celeste and squeezed tight. G.o.d, she ached for this poor woman. She ached for her own mom...

The woman's image began to slip. Celeste quickly dispelled thoughts of her own loss, no matter how much it still hurt her, and concentrated on the woman. On her fears of dying, of leaving her daughters behind. Of the child she- The song ended, and the turntable moved on to Delta Dawn. Yet the woman on the couch let her memories linger...then she grinned.

Celeste clutched the blanket tighter as the vortex sucked her back to the present. She wasn't ready to leave. There was something about that grin, about what hung at the fringes of the woman's thoughts. She needed to see it. She needed- Sucking in a breath, a strange sense of melancholy and hope settled on Celeste's chest. Tears she hadn't realized she'd cried trickled down her face. Helen Reddy's You and Me Against the World, a song Celeste both loved and hated, continued to play in her head as she swiped the tears from her cheeks. While she didn't see the face of the killer, she now had a better understanding of the woman and all that she'd lost.

She'd also discovered a large piece of the puzzle.

"Are you okay?" Maxine asked in a gentle tone.

Celeste looked up and across the room to where Maxine sat on the settee. She wanted to be angry that Maxine had invaded her s.p.a.ce, the private, intimate moment she'd shared with the dying woman, but couldn't muster the strength. "How long have you been sitting there?"

"Does it matter?" Maxine asked, rising from the settee and approaching her. As she drew closer, Celeste saw tears in the other woman's eyes.

"Why are you crying?"

Maxine knelt in front of her, set the blanket on the floor, then took her hands in hers. "I don't know." She pressed her lips together and looked away. "I couldn't see what you saw, but I swear I felt sadness and pleasure. Was that yours, or the woman's?"

"She was listening to a song that reminds me of my own mom," Celeste admitted. "I'll deal with that later."

"Deal with it now."

"No," she said with vehemence. "I need to tell you what I saw, or at least write it down before it's gone."

Maxine slipped the notepad from her hands and stared at it. "Looks like you already have."

Celeste looked down to where she'd scribbled, then gasped. While she'd been...wherever...she had drawn a partial sketch of the woman, capturing the joy in her eyes. She closed her own eyes and sighed. "There was another child."

"What do you mean?"

"I saw her young and pregnant, then at the hospital giving birth. She wasn't even allowed to hold the baby." She drew a mental picture of the other woman in the hospital room. "Her mother was with her and said something along the lines of, 'The baby no longer belongs to you.' From there, I saw the woman marry, have two more children, then getting the news that she was dying. I'd bet anything she was forced into giving the baby up for adoption."

"I wonder if she tried to find the child," Maxine said, and handed her the notepad.

What about my other...daughter?

The quick memory from yesterday's vision hit her with an awareness so acute, it frightened her. "I'm wondering how the reunion went. I'm also wondering if information on the child she'd given up for adoption was what was in the safe."

"Money." Maxine nodded. "If the dying woman was to name her long lost child in her will, that could anger her children."

"Enough to kill her? And if that's the case, which child?"

"Or husband," Maxine added. "Will you attend your friend's mother's funeral?"

"I planned to at least go to the wake."

A mischievous smile crossed Maxine's lips. "Wouldn't it be interesting if you were able to borrow an object from your friend's sister?"

"Borrowing something during a wake or funeral is a little cra.s.s, don't you think?"

"Of course. But I think murder is worse. Maybe there's another way you could do this before the wake."

Celeste glanced to the unicorn clock. "I'm sorry, but have to go to work. I promised the daycare I'd be back by... Wait, I have an idea how I can find out more about the sister. Once I have something to use for another reading, could I come over again?"

Maxine led her from the parlor. "Absolutely. I'm intrigued. I'm also curious about the child given up for adoption. If she did manage to find her child, I'm wondering how."

John's strong, handsome face filled her mind. "A private investigator." Celeste nodded. "And I think I know someone who can help find out who the woman might have used to locate her child."

"Does this mean you'll tell your husband about your visions?"

"Not yet. I want to be right before I do that. Plus, I need to be able to a.s.sure him that I can control the visions when they happen."

Maxine touched the notepad Celeste held. "Keep paper on hand at all times. The scribbling method grounded you, but you still weren't aware I was in the room. This is something I want to work on with you. There should come a point when you will be able to have a vision and be capable of knowing what's happening in your surroundings."

Celeste set her purse, notepad and blanket on the wooden console table in the foyer, then put on her parka. "But what if I have another vision like I did yesterday in my kitchen? For the most part I was able to control what happened in your parlor. Yesterday, I had no control whatsoever. I'm terrified something could happen to my daughter."

"Which is why I want you to come back tomorrow, even if you're not able to bring an object to do another reading." Maxine touched her shoulder. "Yesterday, did you feel anything before the vision took over?"

Celeste nodded and wished she could kick her own b.u.t.t for not considering this sooner. "Yes, I felt nauseous. I blamed it on the Chinese food I had for lunch."

"Was your stomach upset when you were in the parlor?"

"No."

Maxine smiled. "That's because you were in control. From now on, listen to your body. If you get that queasy feeling again, grab a pen and paper, then ground yourself."

"Thank you, Maxine. I really appreciate your help," she said, extending her hand.

Maxine pulled her in for a hug instead. "Same time tomorrow?"

Celeste hugged the other woman back, then leaned away. "Same time," she said with a smile, then turned for the door.

"And, Celeste, consider talking to your husband about your visions. I felt the love and trust you have in him. Remember, he fell in love with you knowing you were psychic."

"I'll think about it," she said, then after bidding Maxine good-bye, she stepped outside. As the icy wind blew against her face, her mind wasn't on telling John about her visions, but on the visions themselves. She was back. She hadn't lost her gift, and now that she knew she could still use it, she hadn't realized how much she'd missed being psychic or how it had defined her.

There was a reason she was blessed with an ability not everyone had. Even if she once again lost the power to perform a reading, she could go on with her life as she had for the past two years. For now, she would discover what had happened to Kelly's mom, and why.

And she knew exactly where to start.

Once she was in her Jeep, she dialed Ian's number.

"What did you think of Maxine?" Ian asked.

"That's why I called you." Celeste made a quick turn and drove toward the Sugar Shack. "I'm not sure. I like her, but I can't help feeling skeptical. When was the last time you spoke with her?"

"Last summer. She came to watch Cami perform at the theater and I invited her to sit with me in my private loge. Cami gave one h.e.l.l of a performance that night. Maxine had loved the play."

Her father's fiancee, Camilla Carlyle, was a former 'scream queen' who had starred as the lead role in numerous horror movies during the '80s. A couple of years ago she'd reinvented herself and had gone on to do a variety of highly successful plays. Which had been a great decision on her part. While Celeste had loved the campy horror movies Cami had done, the woman came alive on stage.

"You're sure that's the last time you two talked?" she asked, still skeptical.

"Yes, why?"

"Let me ask you this instead...what did you tell Maxine about me?"

"If I recall, other than showing off pictures of my granddaughter, you were not discussed."

She slowed, then stopped at a red light. "Well, you must have told her something about me. Maybe when I first moved to Chicago?"

He let out a sigh. "Celeste, I don't like repeating myself, but I will anyway. I told Maxine you could use a mentor, and that I felt your gift was as powerful as your mother's. That's it. When I tried to offer her more information, she cut me off and told me she would prefer to meet you in person and draw her own conclusions about you."

"So you didn't tell her how I met John, or about my gnomes?"

"What did I say about repeating myself?"

She rolled her eyes and pressed on the gas pedal when the light changed to green. "I heard you. I'm just having a hard time believing you or her."

"Interesting. Especially coming from someone who has been looking for acceptance her entire life."

Her dad was right. Instead of trying to find a way to discredit Maxine, she should welcome the woman's advice. After all, she had helped her with the grounding method.

"I'm sorry," she said, and turned down an alley, then into the small parking lot behind the bakery designated for employee use. "You're right. I'm not being fair to Maxine."

"Well, did she help you at all?"

"She did, and I was able to do a reading."

"Excellent," Ian responded, and she swore she heard the smile in his voice.

"I don't know about that." She stayed in the Jeep, but let it idle in order to keep herself from freezing. "I have more questions now than answers. Which is the other reason why I called you. I need a favor."

"As a father or an investigator?"