Page 26 of It takes a Psychic

Maybe if she had been paying attention the day she and her colleagues had been grabbed by the pirates, she could have acted before they were all taken captive.

And maybe if she had gone down that hallway in the mansion five minutes earlier tonight, she could have saved the waiter…

Another muttered rumble interrupted the searing, dream-enhanced memories. She turned her head and saw four eyes glowing in the shadows a few inches away. Roxy was hovering anxiously.

“It’s okay,” Leona said. “Just a dream.”

Relief washed through her. She was not alone. That was a first. She was always alone when she woke up in the middle of the night. She did not do overnights. She was a free spirit and she had rules. But the rules applied to lovers, not dust bunnies. She sat up, reached for Roxy, and hugged her close. “Thanks for sticking around.”

Roxy chortled and closed her hunting eyes, evidently satisfied that things were under control.

“I used to be able to take control of the dream,” Leona explained. “For years, I rarely had it. But lately it’s become a problem again. Probably stress. Maybe the moms are right. Maybe I do have some PTSD from the kidnapping. I seem to have forgotten how to rewrite the script with lucid dreaming.”

Roxy mumbled encouragingly.

“You’re a good listener,” Leona said.

She had been dreaming the old dream almost every night since she and the others had been rescued a month earlier, but tonight’s edition had been the most disturbing one yet. The guilt had been overwhelming. She had felt helpless to take control. And the nightmare had become even more harrowing. Tonight, it had included a dead woman, a lot of blood, and a knife.

She sat up on the side of the bed and glanced at the self-help book on the nightstand. She had purchased a copy ofAchieving Inner Resonance: A Guide to Finding Your Focus and Channeling Your True Potentialon impulse. It was highly rated on the rez-net. The author guaranteed success. Readers and talk show hosts raved about his techniques.

So far it wasn’t working very well for her.

Perhaps she should reread chapter four, “Find Your Focus, Find Your Power.” She had been feeling increasingly scattered lately. No surprise. She was awash in distractions, and distractions meant stress. The kidnapping, the breakup with Matt, the growing realization that the academicworld might not offer the satisfying career she had hoped to create for herself—to say nothing of encountering a dead body and the discovery of a possible clue to the past tonight—added up to a massive amount of stressful distraction.

On top of all that, while she was happy that Molly had found joy with her future husband, it had brought home the realization that she herself was unlikely to ever know that kind of resonance with a partner.

“I need to regain my focus, Roxy.”

Roxy chortled.

“I’ll take that as agreement,” Leona said.

She was about to reach for the book and rez the bedside reading lamp, but she paused when she became aware of the faint vibe of her pendant. She tugged the crystal out from under the top of her pajamas and looked at it. The stone was still resonating gently with the pyramid.

“I can’t let go of it until I know why my crystal is responding,” she whispered to Roxy.

An intense sense of possessiveness, of urgency, jolted through her. Now that the pyramid was in her possession, she was reluctant to give it back to Oliver Rancourt. Very reluctant. Sure, his claim to it might be stronger than hers—if he had told her the truth, he had the law on his side—but she really needed to know more about the pyramid.

“He promised to let me examine it but I don’t know if I can trust him,” she said to Roxy. “I’m certain his interest in the crystal is personal. He wasn’t expecting it to be in the box but when he saw it, he got very fierce. Dangerous. I could tell he recognized it. He thinks it’s important. The question is, why?”

Roxy chortled, unconcerned.

Leona got to her feet. With Roxy tucked under her arm, she padded, barefoot, to the walk-in closet, opened the door, stepped inside, and unlocked the small wall safe.

She extracted the black velvet pouch and undid the cord that secured it.

The pyramid crystal pulsed gently. She not only sensed the resonance but recognized it on some deep level. The longer it was in her possession, the more certain she was that it held the key to at least some of the secrets of the past.

“See, here’s what’s starting to bother me, Roxy. The more I think about this situation, the more I have to wonder if it was a genuine coincidence that a yellow crystal like the one Molly and I wear popped up in an artifact that I was supposed to authenticate tonight. I mean, what are the odds?”

Roxy chortled, evidently in agreement.

“Exactly. Molly and I need answers, and this pyramid is the first solid lead to come our way. That settles it—I can’t let Rancourt take the pyramid. Not until I understand why it’s important.”

Chapter Ten

Melody Palantine leaned over thehotel room desk, planted both hands on the surface, and studied the locator screen. An exultant rush of relief and anticipation ignited her senses. The tracker psi-code she had succeeded in locking onto the Vortex key had been activated and was sending a strong signal.

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