Free Mind Games by Polly Iyer Page A

except the body. But we’re still looking.”
    “Check around that bench on the path, will you? Dust the railing too. There’s reason to believe something went on over there. I want this whole area under a microscope.”
    “Right, Lieutenant. Consider it done.”
    Diana walked over to the tree, riveted to the lifeless form on the ground as one is drawn to the wreckage of an accident. “Eleanor looks so much like her sister,” she said. “The feeling that emanated from Elizabeth transmitted from Eleanor. I’ve never received through a third party. I found the victims by handling something of theirs, like the pink scarf. This guy is channeling me.”
    He put his arm around her waist, and he felt her shiver. When she turned to look at him, he lifted his hand to her cheek, then pulled it away to cover a manufactured cough. “Could he be someone you know?”
    “I don’t see how.”
    “What about someone you’ve worked with?”
    “There’s only one other person besides my parents, and he wouldn’t swat a mosquito. Anyway, he’s not tall enough and I would have recognized him. I’ve searched everyone in my past employ, and no one fits the description, no familiar voice.” She bit her thumbnail. “No, this guy wouldn’t get anywhere near me without a definite purpose. And he’s the only one who knows what that is.”
    “Can you think of anyone who might have it in for you, for any reason?”
    She shook her head. “No, Ernie, I can’t.”
    “What about when you were a kid? Any case make you an enemy?”
    “That was over twenty years ago. I honestly can’t remember. Do you think that could be the connection?”
    “There has to be one. These deaths aren’t coincidences.”
    “I’ll ask Galen. He remembers everything that ever happened in my career.”
    Lucier cocked his head in her direction.
    “Don’t say a word,” she warned. She turned around and froze.
    “What?”
    “I just had the strangest feeling, an almost otherworldly sensation of being watched.” She squinted. “Someone over there.”
    Lucier swiveled around. “Where?” He started toward the crowd that had gathered, half visible in the morning mist rising off the Mississippi.
    “No,” she called. “It must have been a shadow. But I could have sworn…”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Eleven
    Found: Lost Gift Never Lost
     
    D iana had been spooked by the incident in the park early this morning. The sense of being watched was strong and would have continued to bother her if the headline on the front page of the morning’s newspaper didn’t bother her more.
     
    CHILD PSYCHIC GROWS UP. HELPS POLICE IN MURDER INVESTIGATION
     
    She debated tossing the paper in the trash, but gave in to curiosity and read the article. It pictured Diana reading an unknown subject the previous year during her New Orleans performance. The story, written by Jake Griffin, left out nothing, rehashing Diana’s childhood legend and what he termed “the resulting psychological trauma.”
    Where do these guys get this stuff? Resulting psychological trauma. Who ever said that?
    Other pictures splashing the page showed Diana at age six after the discovery of her first body and fourteen-year-old Diana debuting as a psychic performer. Griffin exhumed the persistent accusations of fraud and the blatant shamelessness of the family’s penchant for publicity.
    No matter what she did, the media slammed her. But more than any time in her career, she wished they’d leave her alone now. Sure, all the notoriety sold tickets, but people were dying, and she might be the catalyst. This time the situation was personal.
    * * * * *
    “Y ou’ve arranged to do these readings, Diana. You can’t back out.” Galen paced the floor in Diana’s hotel room. “Your credibility would be shot if you cancel.”
    “I’m not sure I can go through with them, Galen. I’m afraid of what might happen.”
    Galen hesitated, wringing his hands in knots. “Um, I need to speak to you about that,