True Vision by Joyce Lamb Page A

her a glass of tea, and her smile seemed to reach deep into Charlie’s eyes. “You need to relax, honey. I’m all the expert you need.”
    Charlie felt her mouth drop open. What the?
    AnnaCoreen continued to smile as she drifted down onto a rocking chair. “Let’s say you start from the beginning.”
     
    Noah sat in the Mustang parked up the street from the pink shack and tapped his fingers on his knee. A psychic? Charlie Trudeau, journalist, was visiting a psychic?
    Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell he was doing following her around. Laurette’s death had swiped his legs out from under him. Someone killed her, and he couldn’t find a damn bit of evidence as to why. Except for Charlie and her family secrets.
    As much as he didn’t want Charlie to be the key, he knew in his gut that she was. So he followed her and hoped she led him somewhere useful, somewhere that wouldn’t somehow end up destroying her in the process.
    Sighing, he glanced sideways at the seat next to him. There sat the large envelope John Logan had given him of what Laurette had had on her when she’d been hit. He’d retrieved the rest of her things at the Royal Palm’s front desk, stashed the suitcase in the Mustang’s trunk and put the carry-on and a clear plastic bag on the floor of the passenger side. He dreaded going through her things, smelling her scent on them, considered boxing it all up and shipping it to her sister. But he had to sort through it all, had to search for something significant.
    Bracing himself, he reached for the envelope and upended its contents into the seat. The usual stuff tumbled out. A tiny clutch bag, sunglasses, the amethyst ring she always wore on her right hand, the small diamond-stud earrings. Nothing unusual or unlike Laurette. Nothing worth killing over.
    He opened the clutch purse and peered inside. Cash, lipstick, a tampon, a couple of credit cards, some loose change, a card key for the Royal Palm.
    Something was missing. But what?
    He thought of what Mary Dillard had told him, that Laurette had paused after exiting the stairwell and gone through her bag as though she’d forgotten something.
    Her cell phone. She always carried her cell phone. He’d found that funny about her. So simple yet devoted to that phone.
    Leaning over, he snagged the clear plastic bag of stuff from her room. According to the woman at the front desk, it held the things Laurette had left on the vanity in the bathroom and scattered about the hotel room.
    Unopened bottled water. Peanut butter snack crackers. A granola bar wrapper (Jesus, couldn’t they have thrown that away?). A travel alarm clock. Umbrella.
    He picked up a thin sheaf of loose papers and sifted through them. Printouts of online stories by Charlie Trudeau, Lake Avalon Gazette staff writer, Charlie’s photo displayed next to her byline. So that’s how Laurette had recognized Charlie outside the newspaper.
    Then he noticed the cell phone at the bottom of the bag.
    He sank back in the seat and shook his head. Now he knew why Laurette had come out of the stairwell looking indecisive. She’d forgotten her phone in her room and had debated going back for it.
    If she’d gone back, maybe she’d still be alive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
    A nnaCoreen stayed silent for several minutes after Charlie finished telling her about the hit-and-run and her subsequent paranormal experiences. The older woman, who’d listened quietly without interrupting, sipped her tea and watched the waves, a soft smile still in place before she began to nod and gently rock at the same time.
    “Your experience is quite unusual indeed,” she murmured. “Quite, quite unusual.” She stopped rocking suddenly and pierced Charlie with an inquisitive stare. “Explain to me how these flashes feel.”
    Charlie took a breath, held it for a moment, then blew it slowly out. “It’s like I am the person I’m touching at the time they experienced . . . whatever it is I relive. Sort of like an