Free Relative Malice by Marla Madison, Madison Page A

Green Bay and Stillwater. The Feds are working that angle now, so we’ve been focusing on the Glaussons until we hear more from them. We haven’t found much, and, so far, forensics is a bust, except the blood we found in the baby’s room has been identified as Philly Glausson’s. The search teams haven’t turned up any sign of her. And one rather bizarre thing—Chelsea Glausson saw a psychic six months ago who told Chelsea and her daughter they were in danger.”
    “Fuck me! That fortune-teller—a little white ghost, about five-three, nineteen or so?”
    Kendall dropped onto a chair. “You met her?”
    “She came in to warn us that two women were going to meet with violent deaths.”
    “And?”
    “I blew her off, what do you think I did?”
    “You didn’t ask their names or file a report?”
    Before he could answer, she heard an exchange of voices that didn’t sound pleasant. A feminine voice spoke. “Kenny?”
    It was Hank’s wife. That was the end of the shoptalk. “Yes, Diane, it’s me. Sorry about that.”
    “It’s not your fault, dear. I know how he can be.”
    “So everything went well?”
    “It did. They’re going to put him in a regular room soon. I’ll let you know when he can have visitors.”

    Kendall couldn’t believe it. Hank Whitehouse hadn’t filed a report. That had to be a first. But she knew how he felt about psychics assisting the police; apparently his cynicism extended to all forms of the occult. Brynn hadn’t mentioned going to the police, although Brynn rarely said anything she didn’t have to.
    Before she closed the phone, she saw she had a message. It was from Betty Ruffalo, asking Kendall to call her. Good, she wanted to ask Betty about Brynn. She connected to the number.
    “Oh. Detective Halsrud. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. You told me to call you if I thought of anything else.”
    “Sure. Any time.”
    “I just remembered something. It probably doesn’t mean anything, but a few months ago, Chels and Sienna had psychic readings done. The psychic warned them they might be in danger.”
    Kendall decided not to share the fact that she already knew about it. “How did she handle that?”
    “She only told me about it after she realized it bothered her daughter. Sienna had just gotten her driver’s license and loved driving, and after the warning she was afraid to get in a car. And when Mark and Chels told her they couldn’t afford a security system, she wanted them to put deadbolt locks on all the doors.”
    “And did they?”
    Betty started to choke up. “No, but Chels started keeping the doors locked when she was home alone with the kids.”
    “Thank you for letting me know, Betty. I’ll look into it.”
    Betty’s voice trembled. “The last time I was at the house Sienna said something to Chels about the patio doors being unlocked when she came home. Chels said, ‘It’s been months, Sienna. I told you it was all nonsense.’”

10
    Monday
    The first call from Adam Nashlund came in before nine. Kendall didn’t take it. After the first one, his calls were scattered throughout her day, all ignored. She’d never really met the man, but considered him responsible for her brush with death when she was shot as the result of a drug event he’d put in motion. Working undercover at the time, if he’d followed proper procedure on the sting, she wouldn’t have been shot. He wasn’t a cop anymore; she had nothing to say to him.
    Alverson and fellow detective Joe Monson came back in at noon after interviewing girls at the high school about the virgin emails.
    “Did you get anything?” Kendall asked.
    “Supposedly only about six girls got the emails. That we found out about, anyway.” He held up a metallic-red laptop. “We got this from Hayley Frank, one of the Glausson girl’s BFFs. It still has the email on it. I thought we could have it traced. Another girl who got one is dropping hers off later.”
    Kendall sighed. Computer analysis was