She understood exactly what he was saying. Eliza stretched, leaning back in the chair. Her back ached. “They’re called hormones, Cade. We’re all blessed—or cursed—with them to some extent. Hers are just a little out of sync right now.”
He seemed to appreciate the charitable explanation, and laughed softly. “Now there’s an understatement.”
About to leave, Cade paused, curious. He looked over Eliza’s shoulder at the monitor. They were all acutely familiar at the agency with the Web site she was looking at. Ever changing, ever growing, the Web site was filled with a preponderance of photographs of smiling children of all ages. Children who had vanished out of lives that had been carefully or carelessly laid out, breaking the hearts of those who cared about them.
From the looks of it, Eliza had gone through at least two-thirds of the listings. He vaguely recognized the face she was looking at. The girl had been on the site ever since he’d founded ChildFinders, when his own son had been kidnapped. Darin had eventually been found. This girl had not.
He rested his hand on the monitor. “You didn’t tell me you’re working on a new case.” His only rules were that he be kept apprised of every new case that came in and that the first client interview be taped to prevent any misunderstandings down the line.
Eliza half turned in her chair to look at him. “That’s because I’m not. At least, not exactly.”
“Can you get a little more specific than that?”
Though Cade was an incredibly understanding man Eliza had a great deal of respect for, a lifetime of having to defend herself, of being thought of as “the different one” had her unconsciously bracing herself for unpleasantness.
“There’s this child in my dreams—” She stopped, wondering how to phrase what she needed to say.
Cade’s eyes were nothing if not kind. “Go on,” he coaxed quietly, interested.
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, she gave a seemingly careless shrug. “You don’t have time to listen.”
“Sure I do. It’s early, remember?” Cade leaned a hip against the side of her desk. “And my last case wrapped up five days ago.”
Okay, he asked for it, Eliza thought, taking a breath. “There’s this child. She’s running through a field. There’s tall, tall grass that makes it hard for her to run, but she pushes on anyway. She’s about four, maybe five, blond, green-eyed and very frightened. She keeps calling out to her father to come find her. Except he doesn’t.”
Listening intently, Cade nodded. “Anything else?”
She closed her eyes for a moment to focus. “I see a farmhouse in the background.” Eliza opened her eyes again and looked at Cade. “It has that old, run-down look, like one of those places you see in those old documentaries about the Depression.”
“Abandoned?”
She’d gotten that feeling, but she couldn’t be sure. It was the little girl who had held all of her attention. “Maybe.”
“What makes you think the little girl is real?” Cade asked. His tone was tactful, kind. “I mean, she might be a fabrication of your mind, a holdover from a movie you saw or television program you caught, or even a composite from your past cases.”
It was a question she’d already asked herself. “No, she’s real. I know it.” Eliza was as certain of that as she was of who and what she was. “Someone’s taken her, I’m sure of it. I’ve had this dream over and over again, Cade. In the last week, I’ve had it for five nights straight.” She looked back at the monitor. The little girl had to be in there somewhere. “She’s real, Cade, and she’s out there. Lost. Looking to come home.”
“Anything I can do?” Cade asked.
Until she found a match somehow, there was nothing any of them could do. Eliza sighed. “You can ask Carrie to buy more coffee when she gets a chance. We’re almost out.” She nodded at the mug on her desk. “I made a double batch this morning.”
Cade moved away from the desk, inadvertently brushing against Eliza’s arm. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be sure to steer clear of it.” And then he grinned. “Although Megan will probably tell you it’s too weak. If you need any help, let me know.”
The slight contact had created a burst of light within her. Eliza looked at Cade confidently. “Sure thing, but you’ll be too busy.”
“No, I—” The significance of her words hit him. He realized that he’d accidentally brushed against her. From what she’d told him, he knew that Eliza’s insights came at will. Cade looked at her now, his eyes widening. “Really?”
She smiled broadly at him. You’d think this was his first time expecting, instead of a second go-round. “Really.”
He crossed back to her, more eager than she’d ever seen him. “When?”
“This afternoon,” she answered with no hesitation. In her mind, she’d seen the baby, seen one of the assisting nurses recording the time. “3:32.”
“3:32,” he echoed like a man in a trance. He wasn’t skeptical, he really wasn’t, but he would have been less than human if he didn’t ask, “But two minutes ago, you said you didn’t know.”
She knew he wasn’t challenging her. At times, this whole thing left her in awe herself.
“Two minutes ago, I didn’t. Like I’ve told you, I have no control over this. Things come to me. Or they don’t. All I can do is pass on the information when I get it.” Eliza had made her peace with this, though there were times when it still proved frustrating to her. “I’m not much more than a conduit.”
“You’re a lot more than that.” Cade squeezed her hand, grateful for her information and for the fact that worrying about McKayla would be behind him soon. As of yesterday, his wife was officially three weeks overdue. “Thanks. And if you need any help with that—” he nodded at the computer monitor “—I can ask Chad if he has any extra—”
“Thanks, but I don’t think anyone else is going to be able to help, Cade—not yet, at any rate. I’ve only got a vague picture of the little girl in my mind, and right now, I’m the only one who would even recognize her.”
“What we need is a good sketch artist as part of the firm,” Cade commented, leaving. “Well, don’t tire yourself out,” he warned. “I don’t like my operatives dead on their feet, and you’re not going to help that little girl’s case any by turning into a zombie.”
“Zombie, freak. You’re a freak, that’s what you are. Why the hell can’t you be normal, like other little girls?”
The voice echoed in her brain as loudly now as it had any one of the number of times her father had shouted those words at her. They’d come from his own frustration over not being able to understand what was going on with his only child.
He’d been a simple man who understood simple things. His own daughter had seemed like something out of a science-fiction movie to him. He was incapable of bridging the gap that existed between them. After her mother died, that gap had only grown wider.
It had been hard on her father, she told herself now—as she had countless times before in an attempt to smother the hurt his words generated—having a daughter who was different, a daughter with “the gift” as her great-aunt called it.
She’d spent a good portion of her early years wishing the “gift” had been returnable. At the time, she would have given anything to be just like everyone else, just like the “normal” girls her father was forever pointing out to her as a goal to strive for. Being a seer, someone in touch with other people’s pasts and futures, and having those timelines indiscriminately mix with her own present without warning, was more of a curse to her than a gift.
It