Niki laughed out loud. “That’s where you’re wrong, my dude. I mean, um, sir.”
He turned around, leaning one elbow on the back of the chair so he could see her better. “How’s that?”
“All I’m saying is, you think Professional Leda is the real Leda, when in fact, Crapshoot Leda is usually the one running point.”
Leda narrowed her eyes. “Thanks, Nik.”
“I’m here for you, babe. I mean, um. Ma’am.”
Grady rotated back to Leda and gave her the ol’ stink-eye. “I don’t buy it. You took action deliberately and thoughtfully, even though you knew it might upset me. You acted on information that you didn’t want to share, and I want to know what it was.”
“Mr. Merritt… or… or… Detective Merritt… I…”
“Call me Grady.”
Leda opened her mouth. She closed it. She opened it again, sucked in a deep breath. “Mr…. Grady. Did you make it home that night, like I promised you would?”
“Barely, but yes. You were right about that, too. The Uber pulled up to my house at eleven fifty-seven p.m. My daughter was on the front porch in her bathrobe and bunny slippers, waiting for me.”
“Okay.” She held out her hands and then pressed them flat upon her desk, hard enough to hold it down in case of an earthquake. “Since you want the truth, and I have the truth, and it all worked out in the end… I changed your flight because I did know something was wrong—but I swear to you, I didn’t know what it was. I might’ve been vibing off the traffic you were stuck in, or I might’ve been vibing off the cosmic certainty of the plane crashing. Either way, I knew that you couldn’t get on that plane because if you tried, you wouldn’t make it home that day.”
“Wait. Vibing? Like… psychic vibes.”
It was almost a relief when he said it first. She exhaled all the deep breaths she’d taken for a week, all over her desk. “Yes. Exactly like psychic vibes. It’s not something I tell the whole world about, and it’s not very precise or reliable, but I’ve learned the hard way over the years that I can’t just ignore it when I feel it. When I ignore my feelings, bad things happen.”
“Like customers dying in plane crashes?”
She hesitated. “Well, that’s never happened before.”
“Then what?” he pressed.
“Then people get hurt in other ways,” she snapped. “Man, you really are a cop, aren’t you? I said, ‘bad things.’ Isn’t that clear enough?”
“I’ve been a detective with the Seattle PD for more than a decade.”
Leda felt her neck go warm and her ears go hot. “I haven’t broken any laws.”
“I never said you did. This is a social call, more or less.”
“You’re not here to arrest me?”
“For what? Keeping me out of a burning plane?”
She chuckled weakly. “When you put it that way…”
“I’m just here to have a lighthearted conversation with my friendly neighborhood psychic travel agent.”
Niki snorted. “Just a lighthearted conversation about people dying inside airplanes, got it. Or are you just looking for reassurance that your next flight won’t go down in flames?”
“Not now, Nik.”
Grady smiled. “Oh, I’m not flying again anytime soon. But next time I do… yeah, I’ll probably check with you first. I think you might be my travel agent for life.”
Frustrated, worried, and ready to get this over with—whatever it was—Leda finally put her foot down. “But that’s not why you’re here, so what do you want? Why did you really come today?”
He sat back in the chair and seemed thoughtful, like he was considering how much to tell her, or how much to ask her. Then he crossed his arms and started talking.
“When my daughter was born, my wife and I thought it was an honest-to-God miracle. Candice was in a bad accident back in college, and some doctor told her she’d never have kids. Molly was born anyway, and we never took it for granted. Every now and again I’d wake up at night and my wife would be gone from the bed. I’d get up and go looking for her and find her in the nursery, either holding Molly or feeding her, or just looking down at her with… this light in her eyes, you know?”
Leda glanced down at his left hand and didn’t see a ring.
He saw the glance. “I took the ring off a year after she died, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. Wow, you notice everything.”
“Yeah, so do you. Anyway, you want a detective who notices everything,” he said offhandedly. “So one night I got up to use the restroom, and when I was done, I noticed a light in the baby’s room. I figured Candy must’ve gotten up to check on her, but when I got back to bed… she was right there, dead asleep.
“Something about the light in the nursery bugged me, so I went back to see Molly. Just to check. Just to see.” He stopped, staring into space.
“What did you find?” Leda asked, very nearly in a whisper.
“I saw a woman standing over the crib. She was small and thin, and the light… it was… not coming from her, exactly. But it was around her, it was part of her. I don’t know what I’m trying to say,” he said quickly, trying to move on. “But she was looking at the baby and making little cooing noises, so soft you could hardly hear her.”
Niki asked, “Well, who was it?”
“My mother,” he said. “She died when I was in the police academy twenty-odd years ago, but there she was. Standing in my house. Cooing at her granddaughter. After a few seconds, she looked up and saw me. She winked, and she was gone.”
Leda said, “Just like that?”
“Just like that. I suppose she wanted to see the baby, and she came all the way back from the other side to do it.”
He was quiet for a minute, but Leda had always had trouble with silence. “Detective Merritt… Grady… I’m not that kind of psychic. I can’t talk to the dead, if that’s why you’re here.”
If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. The look on his face said he’d either expected that much or he was fine with it. “I’m not looking for a séance, Ms. Foley. I’m just telling you that I know there’s more to the world than what we can always see right in front of us. And I believe you when you tell me that you had a premonition, or a bad feeling, or a bad certainty—if that’s more like it. I believe you saved my life. Saved me a hell of a story and some smoke inhalation, that’s for damn sure. And now I want to hire you. Not to book any travel, and not to talk to my dead mother. I’ve got a case I’ve been beating my head against for a couple of years, and I’m all out of leads. I’m ready to try anything, which means I’m willing to try a psychic. Ms. Foley, I want you to help me solve a murder.”
4.
Leda sat aghast behind her desk. She stared at the cop, who calmly unfolded his arms and assumed a relaxed position in the chair across from her. “You want my help? Like… psychic help?”