Possession Read Free

walked up the porch steps to the front door. It sounded like someone still lived there.
    Not that J didn’t like the solitude. She truly valued her aloneness at times. The last thing she needed was to have a roommate who would leave stuff scattered thither and yon, as her grandmama had referred to it, and become more of a bother than a comfortable second presence in the house.
    No, it was better to be able to find things exactly where she’d left them. To know that if anything got broken or disturbed, it was her fault alone. To know that every phone call and every piece of mail that came to the house was just for her.
    It also helped when some of the visions came to her, some of them so fierce and terrifying that she’d wake up screaming. On those nights the noise would not awaken anyone else.
    Better, it was good to be alone where no one would criticize her. Or tease her about her ability. Or rail at her for some of the things she saw, if she happened to mention them by accident.
    Thank the dear Lord Grandmama had understood.
    They will be here soon.
    J smiled. Okay, that was a given, she told the little voice inside her head that spoke to her. Still, soon was another time-related word. It could mean ten minutes from now, or a couple of days from now. How far was it to the Aaron Street Station? Not far, if she remembered correctly. Roughly fifteen to twenty minutes away, if they managed to catch all the lights green.
    This would be the first time she’d worked with the captain over at Aaron Street. In the past she had worked on two cases for the downtown station on Sender, and two for the Vickers County Sheriff’s Department. Four cases in all as herself, and three others where she’d phoned in tips to the hotline before she had been able to gather up enough courage to present herself in person.
    A shudder ran through her. J ran a nervous hand over her shift to make sure the dress wasn’t too wrinkled. She went into the kitchen for a drink of water, hoping it would help to calm her. The first meeting always went badly. It would take the men a while to accept her, and a bit more time to accept whatever it was she had to tell them. She hated these first encounters, but she had no choice if she wanted to continue doing what she did.
    It wasn’t as if she needed the money. No. After her family had been killed in that car accident, the same one that had nearly taken her life as well, she found out that her father had invested well over the years. Mostly in electronics. Gas. Some Internet stocks. A few shares of a global telecommunications company that hit it big with cell phones. She wasn’t rich by any means, but the dividends alone were enough keep her living comfortably for the rest of her life.
    Her grandmama had taken her in and raised her. J vaguely remembered the house where she used to live, back when her parents were still alive. It was a one-story affair, but she had been six when the accident had taken it all away from her. Even before her grandmother died and left her this house.
    Grandmama had owned the Victorian home she loved to visit. She adored the smell of the place, with its cedar closets, and ages-old bedding and clothing stashed in the trunks in the attic. She could spend hours playing dress up. So when Grandmama had asked if she wanted to live there, J had embraced the woman with hope and tears. Grandmama knew of her specialness, and there were many times J and the elderly woman had sat in the kitchen over cups of tea, discussing her ability. Grandmama had never criticized nor condemned her for what she’d been born with.
    Faintly her ears caught the sound of a car entering the gravel driveway. Wiping her sweaty palms on her thighs, she went to wait in the foyer.
    No, she took the jobs because she couldn’t stand by any longer with this knowledge in her head and not share it with anyone. For years she had “seen” the cruelties inflicted upon others, most of them innocents. It wasn’t until that