Free Redemption by Laurel Dewey Page A

strident voice. “Kit, I’m sorry. I need more.”
    “Money?”
    “Proof.”
    “We’ll find proof when we get there. Isn’t that how it works? Learn as you go?”
    Jane looked at Kit with an empty stare. “I’m sorry.”
    Kit’s face fell. In stunned silence, she gathered the files and envelope of money together and carefully tucked them into her satchel. Jane recognized a sudden frailty as Kit rose to her feet and walked to the door. After a good, well-thought minute, she turned to Jane. Her voice was choked with emotion. “When I said this was a matter of life and death, I was referring to Charlotte Walker’s life...and my death.” Jane stared at Kit in questioning silence. “I have inoperable, terminal lung cancer. Just hit stage four. I’ve got maybe another three months left. I don’t want your pity. I want your help. I couldn’t save my Ashlee from Lou. But I believe I can save that little girl in California with your assistance. I have to go there. My life must come full circle. I can’t die knowing I’ve lived an unfinished life, Jane.” Kit got control of herself. She reached into her satchel and brought out an eight-inch square, purple suede drawstring bag. “I know you’re cautious of anything that is ‘woo-woo’,” Kit said, gently moving toward Jane’s desk, “but humor me. This is a bag of animal stone totems I use for divination. Would you draw one out of the bag for me?”
    If it had been anyone else, Jane would have replied with a string of obscenities. Kit opened the bag and Jane reached in, drawing out a flat stone the size of a silver dollar. Carved onto one side was a slithering snake.

    Kit’s eyes widened, as if she were witnessing a pivotal moment in history. “The snake. My God! You’re on the verge of radical transformation. Your soul is ready to shed the skin of the past and move on to a more enlightened path.”
    Jane did her best to hide a sarcastic smile and not utter an equally cynical retort. Instead, she handed the stone back to Kit. “I’m still not taking your case.”
    Kit dropped the bag into her satchel, sans the snakestone. “You keep it. It’ll remind you of where your soul wants you to go.” She headed toward the door. “Oh, keep an eye out for proof that the animal you chose is legitimate. Very often, the universe delivers the animal to you in some form, as cosmic proof of its validity. Just another synchronistic event.” Kit exited the office and disappeared down the hall.

CHAPTER 6
    The sooner Jane could suck nicotine into her lungs, the sooner she could think clearly and possibly save face with the FBI. Nervously pacing outside her office building, Jane dug one hand into the pocket of her jeans and anxiously rubbed the three sobriety chips. Drawing her hand out of her pocket, Jane dropped the flat snakestone totem she’d pulled out of Kit’s purple drawstring bag. Jane knelt down to retrieve the stone. Boojey-Woojey. That’s what it was, Jane insisted. Just another crackpot, New Age gimmick. And yet...she was beginning to experience too many strange things that couldn’t be easily forgotten. Like the past summer. Jane had experienced strange dreams—mystical, precognitive dreams that eerily alerted her to key signs to look out for. At first she had chalked them up to a bender or the result of quitting booze cold turkey. She tried to detach from the dreams, believing that by not acknowledging them, she could pretend them away. But she could never deny the disturbing realization that the images in those ambiguous dreams definitively led her to a cold-blooded killer. It was in these quiet moments alone that the memory of those staccato images haunted her. Jane looked down at the snakestone. “Radical transformation.” Those were the words Kit had used to describe the auspicious totem. “Ridiculous,” Jane muttered under her breath. She had half a mind to fling the stone into a nearby mound of fast-melting snow. But for some reason, she