Visions of Hope Read online

  "From Charlie Bender."

  "How did he get it?"

  "Didn't say. You know your reputation precedes you."

  "That was a long time ago. I haven't done any police work lately."

  "Who knows? Word gets around." Ellen rounded the bed and began to sift through Libby's closet. "Let's pick out what you're going to wear. A woman must be prepared at all times."

  "For what, may I ask?"

  Ellen gave Libby a look of disbelief. "It has been a long time, hasn't it? For anything, silly. Let's see." She held up a red sundress. "This is a cute little number. Shows just enough to leave him wanting more."

  "For goodness sake, Ellen, this is an interview, not a seduction." Libby snatched the dress from Ellen and stuck it back in the closet. "Are you sure you didn't call him?"

  "Like I said, I couldn't have planned this if my life depended on it." Ellen twirled around with her arms spread. "It just danced into my lap like a little angel."

  Libby marched out of the room to get a glass of water, wondering how to get out of the appointment.

  That night, she tossed and turned into the morning, her stomach in knots. Kipp Reed had imprinted himself in every thought, in every dream, in every feeling she'd experienced throughout the night. Each time she made a case against him coming to see her, his expression convinced her otherwise. He seemed anguished, at times pleading. Why would that be? His demeanor in her dreams did not fit the circumstance of their upcoming meeting, which was an innocuous interview. Nevertheless, she could think of no way out of seeing him.

  The feelings associated with him were intense and urgent, same as the energy of the visions she'd had the last couple of months. Could they be connected? She sensed they were, and if so, she'd have to put her own discomfort aside. The more he came into her mind, the more convinced she became there was a reason for their meeting, but the reason eluded her.

  Drained from thinking about the situation, she meandered into the living room and separated the curtains to assess the weather. A light cloud layer covered the morning sky, giving the forest a gray cast. Sunlight was trying to worm its way through, but to no avail, a welcome relief from the past week of abnormally high temperatures. Libby thanked the gods for the change, even though gray skies were far too prevalent in the Pacific Northwest.

  * * *

  On Wednesday afternoon Libby was in her office going over a few notes she'd prepared for her next workshop when a car came up the driveway, tires grinding on gravel.

  Ellen burst through the doorway. "He's here. Let me look at you. Beige slacks, crisp white blouse. I don't know why you didn't wear that red sundress. Oh well, you still look fabulous. I'm going to slip out the back and walk in the woods for a while so you two can be alone. Don't want him to know it was me on the phone. Too tacky." She pulled Libby from the chair. "Okay now. Go get 'em girl."

  Ellen left Libby standing in the middle of the room in a state of anxiety. Just as the back door slid shut, the doorbell rang. Replacing the butterflies in her stomach was an army of ants.

  When she opened the door to let Kipp in, a woman's image flashed in front of her, then faded, sending a shiver through her body. No time to give the vision a second thought. She blinked her eyes and focused on Kipp, who with a briefcase in hand was staring a hole right through her.

  This close to him for the first time, she caught a glimpse of the sea green eyes she remembered from years past. Dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, he had the build of a man who might have done some serious jogging.

  "It's you. You're the Elizabeth."

  She was sure he took a step backward. "If you'd rather not stay."

  He hesitated a little too long in Libby's judgment. "Maybe I shouldn't."

  She cringed, thought about agreeing with him, but a voice inside her head rang through: Make him stay. Make him stay. And the knot returned to her belly. Whenever it came to her clients or friends, and sometimes to herself, she heeded the voice. She opened the screen door, touched his arm. "Please come in."

  He glanced at her hand, an awkward grin developing. His expression puzzled her, but she didn't press for an explanation.

  She observed him cautiously inspecting the room, eyes narrowing, as if he might find something strange or bizarre, a skeleton or a shrunken head.

  He refused her offer of lemonade and followed her to her office. She sensed him sizing her up. In one second she hoped she looked adequate, and in the next second she chastised herself for even thinking about her appearance.

  Clients who came for readings always sat in the baby blue recliner. She took the computer chair. She preferred to sit with her back straight because the energy flowed better that way.

  To ease his confusion, she asked him to sit in the recliner. He sat on the edge and looked around, as if on guard, ready to leap up at the first sign of anything weird or out of the ordinary.

  Libby always kept the lighting dim while doing readings, but she realized that might be another cause of his obvious discomfort. He seemed nervous, edgy. She had a tendency to pick up on other people's energy, but at the moment it was unclear whether the anxious feeling belonged to him or to her.

  She opened the curtains wide and snapped on the overhead light. She wished she had spritzed the room with lavender oil, an action that would have relaxed them both. She sat and crossed her legs. "So, you're doing an article on..."

  "ESP and the people who have it. For New World Magazine."

  "Why do you want to interview me?"

  "Charlie Bender gave me your card. I didn't know it was you when I called."

  "Or you wouldn't have come?"

  "That's not what I meant. I just never expected--"

  "To be in the same room with someone like me?"

  "It's just that this psychic stuff gives me the creeps, and I'm not exactly wild about doing this article." He sucked in a breath, seemed surprised by his own response. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that."

  Libby knew why. More times than not, the truth tumbled out in her presence, and she felt the need to come to his rescue. "Most people don't understand it. It's natural to feel the way you do." She uncrossed her legs and shifted in her chair. "Why don't you just ask me a few questions?"

  * * *

  Kipp groped in his briefcase for his notebook, his pen, and the recording device. He skimmed the first page of the notebook, but he could not stop thinking about his inexplicable blunder and how unprofessional he'd sounded. It had to be her eyes, those translucent blue eyes that seemed to draw a person into this crazy world of hers.

  He wished he could glance at his watch without her noticing. They had only been in the room five minutes, and he wanted to flee. Why had he let Jerry talk him into this madcap assignment? The only thing to do was to go forward and get out as quickly as possible. "Do you mind if I record?"

  "No, but I'd rather you not use my real name. I'm not looking for any publicity."

  "Fair enough." He flipped on the handheld recorder. "Would you mind scooting your chair closer so your voice will come through?"

  As Libby wheeled her chair directly in front of him, he got a whiff of a heady rose scent, causing him to lose control of the recorder and it fell to the floor. He bent sideways to pick it up, all the while feeling like an idiot. Once he had everything in place, he cleared his throat twice to regain his focus. "Why don't we begin with you? What do you call yourself, professionally?"

  "I'm an intuitive counselor."

  "Meaning..."

  "I give one-on-one personal clairvoyant consultations. I also do intuitive training for individuals, as well as businesses."

  "What does a psychic know about business?"

  "I have an MBA, and I give workshops to teach people how to use their intuition for making business decisions."

  Kipp's brow wrinkled. "Business and intuition. Now those are strange bedfellows."

  "Not really. We all have the ability to tune in to our inner guidance to make good choices; even business people have th
is ability. I teach them how to tune in. Would you like to learn?"

  "No, thanks. So how long have you been able to do this ESP stuff?" Again, how unprofessional. "I mean, how long have you had this ability?"

  "Since I was a little girl. At first it manifested in my knowing when there was going to be a death in the family. Maybe a few weeks before."

  "That must have frightened your parents."

  "Not really. My grandmother had the gift, too."

  "And not your parents?"

  "It skipped a generation."

  Kipp took a moment to make a few notes, trying to disregard the rose scent that was not so easy to ignore. "Why do people come to you for consultations?"

  "It gives them insights into their personal issues. It helps them see things differently. I guess you could say I'm kind of a counselor, only I never tell people what to do. I give them information and let them do with it what they will. I help clarify things."

  "I can't say I buy into any of this, but how do you get the information? Do you use tea leaves or read palms?"

  "Sometimes I hear words in my head, or I see pictures in my mind, or sometimes I just get strong feelings. Sometimes it comes in dreams."

  "How do you know you're not crazy?"

  Libby smiled. "I used to think I was. I went through a period of time when I denounced everything. That's one reason I went to college and got my MBA. I tried to bury it, but I kept having dreams and strong feelings about people. That's when I began working with Dr. Grant at UCLA. He helped me learn how to deal with my gift. He tested me and proved to me I wasn't insane."

  "Is he someone I could contact?"

  "I don't know what he's doing now. I haven't had any contact with him in years."

  "Why's that?"

  "Off the record?"

  Kipp turned the recorder off.

  "Let's just say he was married and our work brought us too close, so I left the study."

  That bit of information piqued Kipp's interest, but he decided to stay in the professional arena and turned the recorder back on. "How do you know the information you get is the truth?"

  "I don't for sure. I'm not 100 percent accurate. I just get the information and give it to the client. They let me know if it rings true. Plus, I see things in patterns, how the road looks at this point in time. But things can change. People have free will."

  Kipp forgot about his discomfort and leaned back in the recliner. "I have to tell you, this all sounds like smoke and mirrors. I'm not sure I buy any of it."

  Libby grinned. She did not look surprised.

  "You look like you've heard this before," he said.

  She touched his knee. "Why don't you let me give you a reading, and you can judge for yourself."

  Kipp sat up with a jolt. "I don't think so."

  Libby leaned toward him and held on to his arm. He stared at her beautifully sculpted nails, then up at her face, and immediately relaxed.

  "Be the investigator," she said. "Prove me wrong."

  Something in her expression challenged him, yet he found himself mesmerized by her whole being. It wasn't that she was a picture of perfection. Her nose had a slant to it, a tiny mole hugged the corner of her mouth, and her smile revealed a crooked front tooth. But it was the overall package, something that transcended earthly beauty. Finally, he broke the trance.

  "I figured if you were a psychic, you'd already know all about me."

  "I get impressions, but I don't tune in to specifics unless I have permission. Psychics have ethics, too."

  Libby backed her chair away from Kipp and turned her attention to her appointment book. "How about coming Friday morning for that reading?" She wrote on the back of a business card and handed it to him, then wrote down his phone number.

  He glanced at the card. He had an appointment for Friday at ten o'clock, even though he couldn't come to grips with why he was agreeing to see her again.

  From the security of his car, he gave her house a furtive glance before heading down the driveway. There was something about the woman. He couldn't put his finger on it. She seemed normal, even delightful, except for the one thing he could not give credence to: her psychic ability. On Friday he would discover if this psychic thing was even an issue.

  Anxious to get home to go over his notes, he sped over the back roads past a small industrial park housing a warehouse for one of the huge box stores. When he merged onto the freeway, he was thinking back on the interview. It seemed half the questions he'd planned to ask had floated away, and instead he'd agreed to a reading, allowing her to delve into his personal life, and that was the last thing he intended to do.

  By the time he'd crossed the Narrows Bridge and rounded the curve toward Port Anderson, he made up his mind to call Libby and cancel out of the whole damn thing, interview and all. He would go with the information he had, and he would never have to see her again.

  He entered his house and wasted no time in digging through his briefcase to locate Libby's business card, but to his surprise and dismay, he discovered he'd left his recorder behind. He'd set it on her desk when she handed him the appointment card. Now what was he going to do?

  He thought about asking her to send it to him, but he could not imagine telling her he wanted to cancel out and in the next breath asking her to package it up for him. He could ask her to drop it off at the police station, give it to Charlie, but he didn't want Charlie to know he had actually contacted her.

  He retrieved a beer from the refrigerator--something he normally wouldn't do in the middle of the day--went back to the living room, stared blankly out the window to his backyard, and tried to work up the courage to call her, when the phone rang. It was Libby McGraw.

  "I wanted you to know you left your recorder here, in case you were wondering what happened to it."

  Now was his chance. He could cancel and ask her to, to do what?

  "You can get it Friday when you come for your appointment."

  Hearing her voice again, he lost his train of thought and said, "I just realized I left it, and fine, I'll see you Friday."

  She hung up, and he stared at the phone, wondering what just happened to his resolve. It was that woman, he concluded. There was something about that woman.

  * * *

  Ellen met Libby in the living room with two cups of tea and motioned for her to sit. "Tell me all about it. I've been out here, pacing for an hour."

  "I'm sorry I kept you waiting. I had a phone reading right after Kipp left."

  "You're door was closed. I figured you were busy. Come on, spill."

  Libby rested her feet on the coffee table. "It was rather a short interview. He didn't ask many questions. I was surprised."

  "I don't care about the questions," Ellen said. "I want to know how he acted around you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, come on, Libby. You know. Did he flirt with you? Does he want to see you again?"

  "Ellen, this was business, nothing more."

  "What did he say to you?"

  "He just asked questions for the magazine article. That's all."

  "And you didn't flirt a little, help him along?"

  "Ellen."

  "Oh, all right." Ellen folded her arms in defeat. "So, how did the interview go?"

  "It went okay. He's a bit of a skeptic, so I talked him into coming back for a reading."

  Ellen clapped her hands. "I knew it. I knew it."

  "What am I going to do with you? It's just business."

  "Maybe. But it's a start," Ellen said. "He wouldn't come back unless he was interested. You've got to admit, he's got that sexy, rugged thing going for him, like a man who's been outdoors wrestling wild beasts, don't you think?"

  "He's attractive."

  "Come on, Libby. He's more than attractive. He reeks sex appeal."

  "Why don't you go after him if you're so smitten?"

  "Maybe I would if things were different and I was single and fifty pounds lighter. But I'm not. Besides, he and I were like bro
ther and sister in high school. I still think of him that way." She aimed a finger at Libby. "I want you to have him."

  Ignoring Ellen, Libby began thumbing through the nearest magazine.

  "Why are you so stubborn? He's single, he's interesting. He's for the picking. Why don't you go after him, or at least show an interest?"

  Libby set the magazine aside. "We've been over this before, Ellen."

  "I know. It's the cancer, isn't it?"

  "That, and my gift. I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to prove myself to someone, let alone a born-again skeptic."

  "Why don't you just go on a date, have some fun? You don't have to look so far ahead."

  "He's not even interested in me. He still thinks I'm a nut."

  "How do you know? Have you asked him?"

  "I don't have to. I can feel it. He could barely look me in the eye when he got here." Libby paused. "Oh my gosh, I just remembered the vision."

  "What vision?"

  "When I answered the door, the figure of a woman flashed in front of me as soon as I saw Kipp."

  "Do you know who it was?"

  "No, but my sense is that it's connected to whatever has been waking me up at night. Those visions must be connected to him."

  "Oh boy, this is getting good. Maybe you'll find out when he has his reading."

  "Maybe." Libby's thoughts were drifting to Kipp.

  "I want you to tell me everything when I get back Monday."

  The word Monday filtered into Libby's awareness, and she refocused on Ellen. "Where are you going?"

  "Home, so you and Kipp can be alone."

  Libby glared.

  "Just kidding," Ellen said. "Jennie called. Summer quarter is winding down, but she's decided to work through to fall quarter. She's coming home for the weekend, and I'm driving up north to pick her up on Friday. So I'll be home all weekend. Back on Monday."

  "Are you going to tell Jennie about the separation?"

  "I haven't decided. I'll play it by ear."

  "Have you talked to Jason?"

  "Jason who?"

  "Oh, Ellen."