Page 1 of No Artful Refusal
Chapter 1
In a deep velvet darkness, Devyn waited.Utterly focused on the one question in her heart and mind.One name.One image.
Ginny Culpepper.
Short blonde hair, blue eyes, tall and lean.Mid-thirties.Mother of two.An ultra-marathon runner, Ginny had gone out on a trail run days ago and never returned.
In the darkness something glimmered, a wisp as subtle as smoke.Devyn was no longer alone.
Ginny Culpepper.
She kept the face, the name, the details about the woman at the front of her mind.
Where is Ginny?
She projected the question into the dark, from her mind to the source of her psychic gifts.
The family was desperate to find Ginny.When she hadn’t returned on schedule, when calls and text messages were met with an “out of service” message, her husband had driven what he could of Ginny’s usual route.He’d called the police, and rather than waiting another full day to file a missing person report, he’d gathered friends and started a search.They’d followed the trails, searched for hours with no results.
The next day the police got involved.With no signs of foul play, they coordinated with the Park Service and set up a grid, retracing Ginny’s steps.
No results.No one had any idea where she could be.It was as if she’d simply been plucked off the planet.Impossible, obviously.But where was she?
Ginny Culpepper.
In the middle of the night that second day, her husband, desperate, had reached out to Devyn.By phone and email, pleading for any insight or advice.
Devyn let herself remember his worry and pain.His love for his wife.The fears that were spiraling out of control.
We need to find Ginny Culpepper.
The wisp swelled and swept closer to Devyn—a brush of awareness across her senses.Alive.A wave of heat and spike of pain followed.
Ginny’s injuries were severe.Devyn could smell the damp rot of a forest floor and feel the cold night pressing into Ginny’s skin as her will to live faded.
Devyn latched onto the singular detail: Ginny was still alive.
Show me where.
It wouldn’t be much comfort to the family if they couldn’t find her.
Now that she had the connection, she asked for the details to locate and rescue Ginny.Deep in her heart, Devyn prayed they would find the woman before it was too late.
Please help me see her.Show me where she is.
In this place that defied time and normal perception, the darkness parted like a curtain slowly rolling back to reveal a stage.
There, hovering over what she thought of as the abyss, images took shape.Trails and trees, the rhythm of Ginny’s shoes meeting the path.A slip, a scream.The scene rolled on and Devyn made notes as details slipped in and out through a hazy fog.
No, no.Not a haze.Fog itself.Fogwasthe image—the challenge Ginny had faced alone.
The rush of it pushed her back, shoved her right out of the quiet darkness.It was as if someone had dropped her through the ceiling into her office.Not at all the calm way she usually exited her searches.
The urgency wasn’t lost on her.
Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed her phone and dialed Sally McKinnon, the park ranger leading the search team.
“McKinnon,” the woman answered.
