Barclay, Linwood Novel 08 - Never saw it coming

Ellie’s to hold onto.”
    “It’s all part of the process. Some of the fuzzier details in my vision may come into sharper focus if I’m in possession of something that belongs to the person, something that’s come into close contact with them.”
    “What do you need?”
    “An article of clothing would be best.”
    “Like, her bathrobe or something?”
    Keisha nodded. Garfield sighed, stood, and went upstairs. A moment later he was coming back down the stairs with a pink robe in his hands. It was faded and tattered from years of wear.
    “Thank you,” Keisha said, placing the robe in her lap and laying both hands on it. She ran her fingertips over the flannel material and closed her eyes.
    Several seconds went by without her saying a word. Finally Garfield interrupted her trance state and said, “You getting bad reception there? You want to go outside or something? Get more bars for your vision?”
    Keisha’s eyes flashed open and she looked at him with something bordering on contempt. “Is it all a joke to you, Mr. Garfield? Your wife is gone, you have no idea whether something’s happened to her, and you joke?”
    “I’m sorry. Go ahead, do your thing.”
    She closed her eyes again, took a few seconds to get back into the mood. “I’m feeling some . . . tingling.”
    “Tingling?”
    “It’s a little bit like when the hairs go up on the back of your neck. That’s when I know I’m starting to sense something.”
    “What? What are you sensing?”
    Keisha opened her eyes. “This was what first came to me, when I started picking up something about Ellie’s predicament. Your wife, she’s . . .”
    “She’s what?”
    “She’s cold,” Keisha said. “Your wife is very, very cold.”

Nine
    While Keisha was waiting to see whether he’d take the bait, thereby giving her a chance to reel him in, she was thinking about her starting point. Cast a wide net to begin with, then narrow the focus. Why not start with the weather?
    It was winter, after all.
Everybody
was cold. Wherever Ellie Garfield was, it only stood to reason she’d be feeling chilled. Okay, maybe that wasn’t true. The night she disappeared, she could have steered her car south and headed straight to Florida. She could have been there in a day, and by now might be working on a pretty decent tan.
    “What do you mean, cold?” Garfield asked. For the first time since she’d gotten here, he seemed intrigued. Drawn in.
    “Just what I said. She’s very cold. Did she take a jacket with her when she left Thursday night?”
    “A jacket? Of course she’d have taken a jacket. She wouldn’t have left the house without a jacket. Not this time of year.”
    Keisha nodded. “I’m still picking up that she’s cold. Not just, you know, a little bit cold. I mean chilled to the bone. Maybe it wasn’t a warm enough coat. Or maybe . . . maybe she lost her coat?”
    “I don’t see how. All you have to do is look outside and know you’re going to need your coat. There’s three inches of snow out there, for God’s sake.” He sank back into the couch, looking annoyed. “I don’t see how this is very helpful.”
    “I can come back to it,” she said. “Maybe, as I start picking up other things, the part about her being cold will take on more meaning.”
    “I thought you had a vision. Why don’t you just tell me what the vision was instead of rubbing your hands all over my wife’s robe?”
    “Please, Mr. Garfield, it’s not as though my vision is an episode of
Seinfeld
and I can just tell you what I watched. There are flashes, images. It’s a little like dumping a shoebox full of snapshots onto a table. They’re in a jumble, no particular order. What I’m trying to do, it’s like sorting those pictures. Sitting here, now, in your wife’s home, holding something that touched her, I can start assembling those images, like a jigsaw puzzle.”
    “You’re pulling a fast one here. I think—”
    “Melissa.”
    “What?”
    “Something about Melissa.”
    “What about her?”
    “There are these flashes, of your daughter. And she’s crying. She’s very upset.”
    “Of course she’s upset. Her mother’s missing.”
    “But even before. She’s very troubled, Melissa is.”
    “I already told you as much. She’s been a difficult kid. She moved out at sixteen, and now she’s knocked up. She’s troubled. Brilliant deduction.”
    “There’s more,” Keisha said.
    Garfield leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees.