Dead Man Living by Carol Lynne Page B

been only six cents off.
    Jessica was used to Joe and placed his change in front of him. By the time he’d reached his car and loaded the groceries, the morning was still dark.
    He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, but before he knew it, the sun was peaking over the horizon. A blaze of orange and red signalled another day. Joe hated it when he got into this mood. Depression sucked, but when you had absolutely no one to talk to, it was even worse.
    His friends had slowly begun to pull away as soon as they’d found out about his new talents. Some of the doctors had referred to them as gifts, but to Joe, they were more like curses. He often wondered why his friends had stopped coming around. Were they afraid he’d see something in them they didn’t want known?
    With a resigned sigh, Joe started the truck and headed home. He was driving through a run-down residential neighbourhood when the first flash hit him. He slammed his foot on the brake as he braced himself for the inevitable. This was always the way his premonitions happened, first the initial flash then a barrage of visions. Sometimes they were disjointed, sometimes a full scene played out in his mind.
    With a tight grip on the steering wheel, he closed his eyes and waited. A white light filled his mind before a picture of a woman appeared through the fog. She was making dinner. She jerked around as a man entered the kitchen. Her hand went to her mouth as she started to back away.
    The average-sized man reached around her and picked up the skillet of fried chicken cooking on the stove. Before Joe could fully brace himself, the man swung the skillet, striking the woman in the head, burning her flesh with the hot oil. Joe felt the impact as sure as if he’d been hit. He struggled to breathe, and the images faded as the bleeding woman’s eyes closed.
    Finally able to take a deep breath, Joe looked around. No, he couldn’t go through this again. There was no way for him to know who the woman was or where she lived.
    The first few times he’d had the visions, Joe had called nine-one-one and had been treated like a lunatic. After the murders had indeed happened, his once fellow police officers had shown up at his house with too many questions.
    Although they knew what he’d been through, most of them were still sceptical, and treated him like a suspect. The papers would get wind of the story and once again his life would be splashed all over the front page.
    Joe put the truck in gear and drove home with the picture of the woman still imprinted in his mind. At least she was cooking dinner. That gave him a couple of hours to think things through.

Chapter Two
     
     
     
    The female victim haunted Joe for the next several hours. Unable to keep the information to himself any longer, he picked up the phone and called his old captain.
    “Burdolski,” his captain’s brusque voice answered.
    “Hey, Cap, it’s Joe.”
    “Uh…hey, Joe, how’ve you been?”
    He could tell that Stan was uncomfortable even talking to him over the phone. “I’m the same. Listen, I was driving down Ravenwood earlier and had one of my visions. I think a woman in the area’s in danger.”
    Joe heard his old friend cover the receiver before talking to someone else in the room. “Joe? I was just talking to Brian on the other phone. A woman on south Hampton, one block west of Ravenwood, was found dead.
    “No, it can’t be the same one,” Joe said shaking his head. “This woman was cooking supper. It’s too early for that yet. It must just be a coincidence. Has the murderer been found?”
    “No, but our prime suspect is the ex-husband. We’ve got officers trying to track him down.”
    Joe ran his fingers through his hair. No, something wasn’t right. The woman was definitely cooking fried chicken. He knew he wouldn’t rest until he knew for sure his vision had failed him. “Can I try and identify that it’s the woman from my vision? If it’s not, we’re looking at another