Page 15 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

Abby’s expression twisted up into a disgusted scowl. “And they let him keep his job?”

“We’re pretty sure he has dirty pictures of someone’s wife.” Donovan sighed gustily before prodding Borrowman. “What else do you know?”

“Bit of information about the victim.” Borrowman flipped through his own notes as he spoke, the yellow pad rustling as he went from one page to the next. “Tylesia Evans, aged twenty-three, never been in a romantic relationship. She’d been her brother’s anchor from the age of eighteen, they went to the same college, and she had a job in the same department as him. They lived together. She was, by all accounts, an amazing person. She volunteered as a life coach at a women’s shelter on her off time. Truthfully, the evidence on this was weird. There were hateful texts between brother and sister, but they only showed up on the victim’s phone, not on Evans’s. GPS showed he went from house to river, but his work colleagues insisted Evans was there all morning from seven-thirty until arrest. Security video from his workplace was dismissed because Evans is a Coder and thereby able to mess with it.”

I blinked. “Uhh…something’s really weird with the picture you’re telling me. Dwayne mentioned to us that he didn’t lose the bond with his sister until hours after he was arrested.”

“Huh. Now that’s interesting information too. Means she was alive until that point. One of my main issues with this case was how circumstantial it all was. This is why I called in Carol.” Borrowman lifted a finger, grinning. “The victim’s body was never found.”

Oooooh. “A missing body could make the case for us.”

“It could indeed. Carol?”

“Oh, I’m all over this.”

“I’ll be your witness.”

“Please and thank you.”

I made a snap decision to include Abby. It would be good experience for her. “Can we join in?”

“Let’s make it a party,” Carol invited.

Excellent.

I ushered Abby up and over into Carol’s workroom. It contained a gigantic map, crystals all over the place, and the other paraphernalia she used to focus. She had six chairs lining the wall for whenever we needed to use them.

I’d explained to Abby before how when we looked for evidence using psychic ability, we had to have an officer of the law as a witness that no hanky-panky was going on. This was the first time she’d see it in action because we’d been primarily doing a lot of interviews and practice.

Abby hadn’t spent a ton of time around Carol before now, but as a Reader, she also didn’t do the awkward getting-to-know-you phase. She dove right in with her usual candor. “Miss Carol, can I ask questions?”

“Sure.” Carol paused in setting up her crystals to give Abby a quick smile. “I can do this in my sleep.”

“Cool. So you’re obviously looking for the body. What all do you need to do that?”

“A name normally suffices. If it exceeds my comfortable range, then something else to boost helps. Something that belonged to the victim, or a picture of them.”

Borrowman pulled out a picture from the file in his hand and passed it to her. I caught a glimpse of it as it was passed over. Tylesia had been a very pretty woman. Oval-shaped face, hair in a short pixie cut, her eyes more golden than brown. She was laughing in the picture, a puppy licking her jawline. “She could be hundreds of miles from here, so I figured a picture would help.”

“Oooh, yes.” Carol accepted the picture, put it squarely in the middle of her table, and then cracked her neck from side to side. “I think I’m ready to start.”

Borrowman leaned over to turn her camera on. Yes, I was on the opposite side of the room from said camera.

We went through the spiel of time, date, and license numbers for everyone. Then Carol flicked her fingers and really got to work. I could tell from her lines and her expression that she was one hundred percent focused.

Said focus also only lasted one second, then she pulled back with a growing frown that beetled her eyebrows together. “Um. Guys, this is weird.”

“I don’t like weird.” I said this with conviction. “Weird causes problems.”

“Trust me, I know. But I can’t find her.”

Her statement hung in the air for a moment, like a joke that had fallen flat.

“What do you mean, you can’t find her?” Borrowman asked, probably hoping she was kidding. “You can find anyone.”

“I’m not entirely infallible,” Carol retorted, leaning back from the table. She still wore a puzzled frown. “If someone’s been cremated and their remains scattered to the four winds, I can’t point to an obvious spot and say ‘here’s the body.’ But this doesn’t feel the same. This feels like nothing. Like I hit a brick wall before I could do more than start the car.”

In my years of working with her, never had I heard her say the like before. She clearly had never experienced this before, either, as confusion ran rampant through her lines.

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