Crossroads Revisited Read Free Page B

McGuire?”
Hayworth settled into his chair again. “Don’t tell me you’re buying this bull
that there’s a killer on the loose again, only now he isn’t targeting Goth
girls, he’s picking gay college students?”
    “What did you say?” Frank leaned in over
his desk.
    “You didn’t know that, did you?”
Jeffords said with a smirk. “Yep, light in the loafers, every one of ’em. We
kept that little tidbit out of the papers, and you can bet their parents aren’t
going to be spreading the news.”
    “If they even know,” Hayworth added.
    Jeffords annoyed the hell out of Frank
at times—the man and his departmentalized labels. Light in the loafers?
In Frank’s opinion, Jeffords was light in the brain cell department. While
squashing an uncontrollable urge to reach over and strangle the little
pipsqueak, Jeffords’ smart-ass phrase sunk in. So that’s what the latent
dreams and images meant. Five gay men were dead. Frank’s stomach clenched and
Rand’s face rose before him.
    Sick.
    He was going to be sick. He’d been down
this road many times, and his Inner Spirit never failed him. He didn’t always
know the exact nature of the messages, but his subconscious never fell short of
its goal—to rouse his precognitive abilities.
    He wanted the men gone from his office,
now, this minute. He needed to dim the lights, light a candle or two, and
connect with a higher level of consciousness, take a peek into the future.
Damn, he should have done it days ago when the images nagged at his addle-pated
brain. Too wrapped up in his feelings for Rand and the kid’s irrational
behavior, he’d failed to heed the warnings.
    Jeffords narrowed his eyes. “McGuire…you
still with us?”
    “Yeah, I mean, yes, I’m listening. What
does your visit have to do with me?”
    Jeffords looked at Hayworth, and Frank
couldn’t help but wonder about the agent’s cool, collective demeanor. He didn’t
seem eager to offer an opinion, and Frank really wondered about that.
    “We, that is, the Department and the
FBI, hope you’ll attend the meeting tomorrow night at City Hall to settle the
natives down, convince them there is not another maniac prowling the city, but
rather it’s the result of overindulgence.”
    “Why would they listen to me, Jeffords?”
    “Emily thinks they will.”
    Frank nearly came out of his chair.
“Emily…Quinn Brennan’s widow, Rand and Marlow’s mother? What has she got to do
with this?”
    “Haven’t you spoken to her lately?”
Jeffords asked.
    “Last week. Why?”
    Another lopsided grin split Jeffords’
lips. “You probably don’t know, but the last kid we found is the son of Emily
Brennan’s best friend.”
    Frank picked up the newspaper and
glanced at the headlines: Another College Student Missing. And next,
Frank looked at the young man’s picture. “Thomas Kincaid? This kid?”
    “Yep, found his body early this morning.
Emily and Martha Kincaid were high school friends. Emily wants you brought in,
and the pressure is on. She claims the parents don’t trust the police or the
FBI and they want a neutral to look things over, meet with them, and deliver
the facts straight up.”
    Hayworth cleared his throat. “Jeffords
tells me you deal in a form of clairvoyance?”
    Frank shot Jeffords a stern glare and
turned to the man. “I’m not a clairvoyant and Jeffords knows it. I dabble, and
I want to stress dabble , in perceptions, a skill learned through
meditation and personal discipline. It’s not recognized by the medical community,
it’s a…a―”
    “You commune with the dead, huh, Frank?
You can talk to spirits and ghosts. Tell Reuben, he’s already read your file
anyway.”
    Hayworth studied him, and Frank couldn’t
imagine what thoughts must be flitting through the man’s procedural brain. He
held no illusions about the FBI’s opinions on clairvoyants, spirit walkers, and
the all the other derivatives. Hell, the government