Free The Headsman by James Neal Harvey

missing since Thursday afternoon, when he hadn’t returned from school. He’d gotten off the bus at the usual stop, and the driver recalled seeing him trudge up the hill toward his home. He never arrived, his mother said. No one had seen him since, and there was no clue as to his whereabouts. A search party had combed the area Thursday night and again on Friday, with no success.
    Karen sighed. It was a sad story, and she could imagine how frantic that poor family felt. But it was with a sense of relief that she finished the piece and turned her attention elsewhere. At least it hadn’t reached out to her, as those things sometimes did, projecting images, terrible revelations she wanted not to know about.
    The ability to receive those messages in the form of a vision had been a curse since childhood. Sometimes the images were as plain and clear as photographs in an album, leaving no doubt whatever as to who was involved and what had happened. And at other times she saw only unexplainable fragments, as with the hooded man with the ax. And at still other times, such as in the case of little Michael Mariski, she received nothing at all.
    Where the vision came from, or why she had been singled out to carry this awful burden, she had no idea. But it haunted her, and sometimes tortured her, and she’d been trying to escape from it all her life.
    Her eyes focused on an announcement that the Jaycees were giving a dinner dance three weeks from now. Maybe Ted would ask her to go. And then again, maybe he wouldn’t. The relationship had been so strong for a time, but then she’d gone through one of her spells, and her dark moods and her withdrawal and her headaches had presented a side of her Ted didn’t understand and that she couldn’t explain.
    “Hi, Karen.”
    She looked up to see Ed McCarthy approaching, pulling off his heavy tweed overcoat, his face ruddy from the cold outside air. “Oh, good morning, Ed. I didn’t hear you come in.”
    “Geez, if I’d known that I would’ve snuck up on you.”
    She laughed. He was a good guy, friendly and open, easily the best salesman Boggs had. He was always leering at her and making suggestive remarks, but she knew it was nothing but a good-natured running joke between them. Ed was happily married, the father of two little girls, and Karen considered him a friend.
    He hung up his coat and then came over to half-sit on the edge of her desk. “How you doing?”
    “Not bad for a Saturday morning.” Which was the truth. Her headache was easing up, and with any luck the spell would be leaving her. Just the thought of that buoyed her spirits. “How about you?”
    “Terrific. I sold two cars yesterday, and I think I’m gonna close another one today. That’s if I can get this guy off his ass. He’s one of these fence-straddlers. His old car is a ’seventy-five Dodge and it’s falling apart, but you’d think buying a new one was gonna cost him a million bucks. He’s been hemming and hawing for a month. Can you believe it?”
    “What makes you think he’ll come through today?”
    “His old lady’s coming with him, that’s why. He wouldn’t be bringing her along unless he was ready to move. I’m gonna sell him that metallic blue Taurus four-door. It’s loaded, and I’m giving him a good deal. And besides, ladies like blue.”
    “Good. Hope you sell him.”
    “Can’t miss.”
    It must be great, Karen thought, always to be that optimistic. “How’s everybody at your house?”
    “They’re fine. Jenny’s got a cold, but outside of that they’re okay. Few more weeks and the kids’ll have spring vacation. I’m gonna drive us to Florida, to see my mother in Tampa.”
    “Wonderful. Wish I were going down there.”
    “Hey, you mean it? I’ll leave Jenny home, take you instead.”
    She smiled. “When I go to Florida, it won’t be with you and a car full of kids.”
    A booming voice said, “Well, everybody looks bright and chipper this morning.”
    They turned to see