A sinister gift, p.7
A Sinister Gift, page 7
What if she got committed before she could even meet her and take care of her?
Was getting pregnant a huge mistake? What had she done?
“You used to date him or something?” Tom’s teasing voice cut through her manic thoughts.
“Hmm?”
“You look enthralled and appalled.”
“No, I don’t think I know him.” This was partly true. “How old is this case?”
Perhaps this was not a fresh case, and she’d seen this missing notice before. Her subconscious could have latched onto the image of the missing man. A logical explanation. A glimmer of hope surged—
“He was reported missing this morning.”
Crap. So much for hope.
“Who is he?”
Perhaps the man was a realtor with his face advertised in newspapers or on bus shelters.
“Dr. Réginald Haché. A plastic surgeon.”
“Hmm.”
Elenora sat at the table with her breakfast. If she kept hovering over Tom’s shoulder, staring at his screen, he would launch a Spanish inquisition. She started eating, feeling his gaze on her. He had this look of when he tried to understand something that didn’t quite make sense.
“Perhaps I should cut back on the maple syrup,” she said, pointing at her oatmeal, to change the subject and get him off her case.
“Can’t go wrong with that, I suppose.”
He went back to his breakfast and laptop, while Elenora’s mind returned to the man. A plastic surgeon might have advertised his services or been interviewed on TV. It sounded like a stretch, but that could explain why her subconscious knew of him.
But the timing of dreaming of a stranger mere hours before he was reported missing and possibly in danger was truly uncomfortable.
What did this mean, and what was she supposed to do with this most likely unreliable information?
The station sometimes received so-called tips from so-called psychics, and while they did their due diligence and humored the “enlightened ones”—as Tom’s cop partner, Alexandre Bélanger, liked to call them—to Elenora’s knowledge, none of these tips had ever been true or of any use.
Was she herself an “enlightened one” now?
If she was and Alex found out, what would he think of her?
And what about Tom? How embarrassing it would be for him to have an “enlightened” wife. He’d become a laughingstock at the precinct.
“His face rings a bell, but you can’t put your finger on it, is that it?”
Once again, Tom’s voice brought her back to reality. Of course he wouldn’t let her odd behavior go so easily. She nodded to him.
“I bet he owns a private practice and they advertise. It might be where you’ve seen him,” he volunteered.
“That would make sense.” She liked that Tom thought this, too.
He stood up with his plate. “You don’t need one more thing to worry about, Ele. So, unless you’ve seen the man being abducted or have anything concrete that could help find him, there’s nothing you can do. So, don’t lose sleep over it, okay?”
He kissed the top of her head. Hopefully, he didn’t hear her gut churning.
Unless you have anything concrete…
There’s nothing you can do…
Don’t lose sleep over it…
She spent the car ride with Tom and most of the morning with her mind racing to figure out what she could do to help the missing man, even if it was a futile endeavor.
Tom was right.
Unless she had hard facts to contribute, what she’d seen and experienced in the middle of the night was utterly useless. Even if she called the station’s tip line anonymously, what could she tell them? “The plastic surgeon will die or is already dead.”
Thanks so much for calling!
Not.
Ugh.
Aside from an urge to scream, she had absolutely nothing.
In the precinct’s kitchenette, Elenora dumped a packet of sugar into her decaf tea. She really ought to cut down sugar in tea as well, but she was stressed and yearning for a sweet, warm drink. Besides, cutting down on sugar might help with stress, but it would add another challenge to her to-do list. And couldn’t cutting too much sugar too fast lead to withdrawal? She didn’t need one more thing to mess with her hormones and emotions.
She stirred the sugar in the hot tea and added milk.
Hormones.
Stir. Stir.
Damn hormones. They clouded her judgment, controlled parts of her, and drove her crazy. They screwed with everything.
What if her brain, flooded with pregnancy hormones—compounded with sleep deprivation—was just playing tricks on her? Had made a false connection?
What if the man she saw in her nightmare looked like the plastic surgeon but was a different guy, who also happened to have wavy dark hair? After all, she didn’t get a good look at the man in her dream.
She took a cleansing breath and tried to remember the nightmare objectively, without panic.
She focused on recalling the man. She reminded herself he had dark, wavy hair. The image that popped into her mind was that of the man on Tom’s laptop. She shook her head and put the milk back in the fridge.
She wrapped her fingers around her cup of tea and let the warmth soothe her. She’d try a different approach and concentrate on the elements of the dream instead.
She thought of the unsettling heartbeats growing in volume. The jagged breathing. The terror. The pain taking over her body. The blood.
She shuddered. She really had a hard time with blood.
The image had been so vivid. Still, she forced herself to visualize the blood coming out of the man’s mouth. Another massive shudder went through her as she pictured red liquid trickling from the corner of his lips, but she couldn’t see more of his face. As if she was trying to force a memory that didn’t want to be recalled. Or that had been erased.
This was bizarre and frustrating.
“There you are.” Tom’s partner Alex stood in the kitchenette’s doorway. Built like a quarterback, he filled most of the frame. His stature and demeanor, coupled with his permanently stoic expression, were intimidating. But Elenora knew the tough exterior was there as an armor to protect his sensitive and wounded soul, as it often was the case with people who had experienced trauma.
He reached inside his jacket. “Tom wants you to see this. He said it might reassure you.”
He showed her a picture of three people in lab coats mugging for the camera.
“The ad Dr. Haché’s been using. He’s plastered half the town’s media with it. Tom says you might recognize it.”
Elenora and Tom’s hunch was right, and she recognized the man and the publicity shot.
A rush of relief went through her as she studied the missing man standing in a power stance in the middle of the picture, arms crossed and legs apart. The few times she’d seen this picture, she thought that he looked like a poster boy for mansplaining. He was flanked by two female colleagues, each with a more modest attitude than his. The man’s expression suggested he was used to posing and liked to be seen. He was moderately handsome, his wavy hair tamed and his face clean-shaven.
In the picture on Tom’s computer, the man had a short beard like in her dream, and his hair was slightly disheveled. The laptop picture had been taken outside of a professional context. Likely by a friend or a family member. He looked considerably different, which was the reason Elenora couldn’t place him.
But in her dream, he had a beard…
Then where had she seen him with a beard?
Elenora reached to take the picture from Alex to get a closer look. As her fingers made contact with it, images from the dream rushed back inside her mind.
She saw the man’s face clearly now: his scruffy beard. His battered face. His eyes bulging. The blood trickling at the corners of his lips.
This time, though, his mouth opened, and a handful of bloody teeth came out of it.
Elenora gasped and her fingers let go of both the picture and her tea. The mug crashed to the floor, spilling its content.
The scraping sound of metal against linoleum jolted her back to consciousness.
“Ele? How about you sit down?”
Alex took her elbow and guided her into the chair. He crouched in front of her, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”
She noticed the spilled tea and made a move to clean it up. He put a hand up in front of her. “Leave it. Gary will take care of it. Are you all right?”
Was she all right? She didn’t know.
Those teeth…
Elenora felt a shooting pain going through her gums. She touched around her jawline. The pain was gone as fast as it had come.
What in the living fresh hell?
“Elenora?” Alex wanted an answer.
“I might need to see a dentist,” she said, hoping it wasn’t too much of a lie.
Alex burst out laughing at her apparent non sequitur. He looked relieved. “Not your favorite thing?”
“It’s right up there with getting a root canal,” she said dryly.
He let out another laugh. “You scared the crap out of me. I thought your water had broken or something.”
“No, but I still wet the floor.” She snickered, staring at the spilled tea.
“Yes, but that’s easily cleanable and won’t result in a premature baby.”
“Good point.”
Alex stood. “Want me to go get Tom?”
“No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“When in doubt, blame it on hormones. They’re determined to make me look crazy.”
“You look more sleep-deprived to me than crazy. I’ll send in Gary,” he said as he left.
Elenora waited a moment and whipped out her phone, sending Pierre a text. Meet me for lunch?
Chapter Ten
“What do you think it all means?”
Elenora had asked Pierre to meet her at the Fish & Ship, a restaurant near work specializing in seafood. Tom hated fish, the smell of fish, and anything that tasted like fish, so she knew the chances of him waltzing in during her chat with Pierre were microscopic.
She had spilled all the crazy beans to Pierre. As she expected, he listened intently to all of it. He was always keen on the gory details, both figuratively and literally. Ever since he’d retired, nothing and everything was fair game for a little investigating. Golf never became his thing.
“I think this means that you are special, like I’ve always suspected.”
“You mean, a euphemism for not normal?”
“Please don’t ever think that.”
“My mother is special too…” A bit of sadness coated Elenora’s words.
Pierre studied her for a moment. “Is that your worry? That you’re like her? That you’ll end up like her?”
“Isn’t that where I’m headed?”
Pierre finished chewing and swallowed his bite of seafood poutine before answering. “I think that what you’re going through is traumatic, like what happened to Muriel, sure, but I think the similarities end there. I don’t think she has special powers.”
Special powers? What Elenora was going through felt more like a distressing, insanity-inducing, life-destroying aggravation than a special power. Was there such a thing, anyway?
“You think I’m some kind of psychic?” She couldn’t believe she even said that out loud. Her eyes skated over the neighboring tables to make sure no one had overheard her.
“I don’t know,” Pierre said. “Factually, if we recap, you’ve had a vision about a little girl that convinced you on the spot that you were pregnant—”
“We could call that a hunch.”
“One mighty hunch. So, first a vision while awake. Then last night, this very concrete nightmare about a man who turns out to be missing. In real life. So, that’s another vision, but this one while asleep.” Pierre held up two fingers, building his case.
With resignation, she added, “And then, I touched his picture and saw even more.”
Pierre uncurled a third finger. “Another vision, yes, and I would guess some kind of special tactile sensory ability.”
Tactile sensory ability?
“I think that one’s important because it suggests you might have some control over it, as opposed to the visions in your sleep.”
“How so?”
“As in, you touch something, and a vision comes to you. But if you don’t touch anything…”
“Hmm.” She liked the sound of that, the possibility of having some control.
“And let’s not forget the little boy at the bottom of the river who’s now showing up, and your clear recollection of a conversation we had thirty-seven years ago and that no one else knew about. Surely that’s worth two fingers.” Pierre’s five fingers were spread out.
“You can stop with the fingers,” she groaned.
“You can’t argue with fingers,” he said before honoring her request and putting his hand down.
“So, what should I do now that your fingers have established how doomed I am? Convince Tom to bring me to the guy’s house and his operating room so I can sweep my hands along every surface for clues, like the psychic, human-equivalent of a sniffing dog?”
“Well, that’d be a start…”
Elenora raised a brow—he couldn’t be serious.
“That’d be ideal but highly impractical. I recognize that.” He said around a mouthful of food. “Nora, I can appreciate the weird predicament you’re in and the inability to be straightforward about it.”
“Thanks.”
She stabbed a piece of broccoli and ate it. Her baked salmon plate was flavorful, and she was eating more than she thought she’d be able to, considering the circumstances.
“You know what gets to me, aside from the debilitating fear this whole situation is causing? And aside from hiding this from Tom…?”
“You still haven’t told him?”
“No.”
“Do you intend to?”
“I dunno. Not yet. I’ll see. I mean, what if this turns out to be nothing, and the plastic surgeon turns up alive? I don’t want to freak Tom out over nothing. He’s got way enough stress with work and me being so hypersensitive all the time. He’s a real saint, putting up with me as it is.”
Pierre opened his mouth to argue but reconsidered. He pushed some fries around his plate before saying, “That’s understandable and your decision… So, what’s getting to you?”
“The feeling of powerlessness to do anything. It’s as if I were facing a jumper and knowing that he’s about to jump and knowing that I could talk him out of jumping. But I’m being prevented from acting, from doing anything at all.”
“And then some macho asshole arrives at the scene and pulls rank, telling you to take a hike?”
That got a slim smile out of Elenora.
“Yeah. I mean, what’s the good in having this weird info if I can’t do anything about it? It’s killing me.”
“I understand the feeling.”
“I know you do.
“It might feel like you’ve hit a dead-end but be patient,” Pierre advised. “You’ve had a new clue just a few hours ago.”
“Yes, but a useless clue. Bloody teeth don’t sound like a slam-dunk piece of information. It probably just means the guy’s getting tortured, right now, as I’m enjoying lunch. Good luck finding him based on that useless insight.”
“I hear you and feel your frustration. But sometimes, a seemingly useless clue can become important.”
Elenora shook her head. “I don’t know how you used to do this and not go crazy.”
“Who says I haven’t gone crazy?”
“But not as much as me, I bet,” Elenora said self-derisively.
“You’re my favorite crazy person. Don’t you ever forget that.” Pierre pointed his fork at her, a strand of cheese from his poutine stretching and dangling.
“So, you think a handful of bloody teeth might mean something? Other than the guy getting beaten up? You think this clue might help us find him?”
Pierre shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just saying you shouldn’t dismiss it. Perhaps whoever’s on the case—”
“Lagacé and Monroe.”
“Okay, so perhaps Lagacé and Monroe will find the guy dead and looking just like you saw him, and that will be it. No more, no less. But your mind emphasized bloody teeth. It fed you the image in a separate vision. It might mean more. Concretely or abstractly.”
“You mean like a symbol?”
“Yes, it could be a symbol. Perhaps the missing guy got into a fight with a bad dentist?”
Elenora couldn’t help a snort.
“You know what I mean.”
“I know.”
They ate in silence for a moment.
“Is there such a thing as a tooth fetish?” Elenora mused out loud. “Maybe we need to look for a dentist, like you joked, or someone who likes teeth? Have you ever come across a tooth-related crime?”
“In a crime involving torture, yes. But as a fetish… I can see a disturbed mind collecting teeth as a prize.”
“What about a dentist gone off his mind? Ever arrested a dentist?”
Pierre pondered for a moment. “Not from memory, but I could ask around. Ask Tom to look into that too.”
She groaned. “And have him run for the hills when I explain why?” Elenora dropped a hand to her belly. “In case you haven’t noticed, now’s not the best time to break up my marriage.”
Pierre frowned. “You know he wouldn’t do that to you.”
Deep down she did.
“Again, it’s your decision…” Pierre said. “But, if you told him, it might freak him out, puzzle him for sure, but he’d understand. If you gave him a chance and a bit of time to process. He’s not an asshole.”
“I know he’d eventually understand, but he’d worry sick, and I’m already worrying him so much and making sure he can’t have a good night of sleep with those stupid nightmares.”
“Right, but if you shared these worries with him, you might overcome them together and both of you might get better sleep. You need Tom on your side, not on your conscience.”
