Dr. Clair Daniels jumped. She held her arms wide, enjoying the rush of air against her entire body. The world looked small, the lakes below connected by thin fingers of blue through a great green and tan expanse of Wisconsin. Exposed skin froze immediately, the wind an icy compress she neither minded nor enjoyed. It simply was part of the thrill of jumping from a perfectly good airplane, as her mother would say.

Too soon it was time to pull the ripcord. Her body drifted downward as the parachute slowed her pace. This gentle fall gave her time to savor the endorphin rush of the jump and release the tension of the past week. She adjusted her descent, pulling on the cords attached to her harness, and angled for the Jeep waiting outside the landing zone. While she'd been floating through the air, clearing her mind, company had arrived.

A car sat parked beside the Jeep. She recognized the dark sedan and the suited man standing near the front bumper. Her stomach flipped. Only police departments boasted such eye-sores, and the car was just as bad. The woman, her back to Claire, wore a nondescript dress and held her arms tightly, as if cold in the late October sunshine.

Claire jogged forward as her feet hit the ground. The parachute billowed, swallowing a last gust of wind before collapsing. The harness came apart easily in her skilled fingers and it fell from her shoulders. She removed helmet and gloves, ran her fingers through shoulder-length, auburn hair, and waited as the pair approached.

Worry replaced her tremors of anxiety. Plodding toward her, face drawn, Mrs. Fuller appeared frightened. Tracy Fuller a six-year-old patient of hers, began treatment during the Fuller's divorce, though the trauma she'd suffered then didn't compare to what she'd endured before her father left the home.

For months Claire tried to help the girl, using all of her abilities, including her secret weapon. Though it left her drained, the results made up for the horrific experience of steeping herself in the terror which haunted the girl's mind.

"Mrs. Fuller, what's wrong?" Claire stepped forward, slightly out of breath from concern and the lingering effects of altitude. A sense of dread stole over her. The emotionally charged air triggered the familiar dropping sensation in her belly, as if she was on a speeding elevator for a dark basement.

Tracy's gone. She's wearing a pink shirt, she's sitting in the back of a car, she's scared.

"He took her!" Mrs. Fuller cried, her complexion a mottled sea of red and white, her eyes swollen from tears. She grabbed Claire's arm. "He's got my baby!"

Claire was helpless to stop the images, to delay them until she could at least introduce herself to the suited man studying her with intense suspicion.

Exhaust. It's awful, it's making her sick. She wants to throw up. Where's her daddy taking her? Why can't they see Mommy first? She's hungry, her face hurts where daddy hit her when she screamed. He shoulda told her it was him, she wouldn't have screamed. She curls on her side.

The hand on her arm increased its pressure. Claire could see the woman's mouth moving, and yet she couldn't. She couldn't hear the words either, but she could . . .

"Don't Buck, I promise, I'll come back. Don't take my baby."

He comes for her, face leering, drunk on power, his whiskers shadowy beneath the grim line of his hard mouth. He backhands her across the face. She falls weeping. He grabs her hair and shoves her down into the ugly green carpet between the coffee table and couch. He's tearing her dress, his hands are rough, hurting her breasts as he yanks her bra out of the way.

"No! No!" She is screaming . . . and screaming . . .

"Dr. Daniels?"

Claire blinked. "Sorry?"

"Are you okay?" The man stood, wallet out, dangling uncertainly in his hand.

Mrs. Fuller turned away and buried her face in her hands, weeping uncontrollably. Claire searched for the woman's first name, but couldn't find it. She shook herself and nodded. "Yes, I'm fine. What's going on?"

"I'm Detective Striker." The wallet came up, showing a badge and photo ID. He snapped it closed and returned it to an inside pocket of his jacket. "Mrs. Fuller's daughter was abducted by her husband three days ago and we'd like to ask you some questions."

Claire glanced to the hysterical woman, and then to the Detective. "And you thought it was a good idea to put her through this? Are you that insensitive or-"

He held up a hand, cutting her off. "It was her idea. She wanted to speed things along. She came to give her consent as next of kin, so you can divulge information about your patient."

She nodded slowly. It didn't take a psychic to know Striker had likely been very persuasive in suggesting Mrs. Fuller cut through the red tape and accompany him.

Angry the woman's vulnerability had been taken advantage of, she stalked to the end of the parachute, intent on packing it away and getting out of there as fast as she could. She had a good reason to dislike law enforcement, and in her estimation, detectives were worse than any backwoods cop. Besides, what help could she give?

"I don't know what I can tell you." Claire gathered the silk. "Tracy didn't talk much during our sessions."

"She must have said something." Striker pulled a small black notepad from inside his coat. His sandy hair flopped onto his forehead and Claire wondered if he'd cut it soon to look like the other clones. Too long in front, curling beneath his ears, it truly wasn't department standard. "Here, Mrs. Fuller said Tracy's been seeing you for almost a year."

"That's true, but she didn't say a word for the first four months." Claire paused, staring at the shoulders of the weeping woman. The bastard raped her, then took her girl before she could even find her underwear. The scent of exhaust filled her nose and throat.

"Does that mean you're not going to cooperate?" Striker used a tone that said it would be a very bad idea to oppose him.

"No." She sighed deeply, filling her lungs with clean air, wishing she could spit to rid her mouth of the oily taste. "I'll help. I'll do whatever I can."

Mrs. Fuller spun, her ankles bare in her white sneakers, and rushed forward as if to embrace Claire. Lifting the parachute, Claire warded her off, but smiled softly to take the sting out of the rebuke. She couldn't stomach another encounter with the ex-Mr. Fuller, however second-hand it might be.

"Thank you so much, doctor." She pulled a very damp looking square of linen from inside her dress pocket and wiped the wetness from her face. "You've done such wonders with Tracy, I knew you could help."

Claire nodded, uncertain. Mr. Fuller could be driving any make of car with a bench seat in the back. She didn't know what the outside of the vehicle looked like, or the color. Her connection went to Tracy, not the father, and the girl hadn't looked out the window. No street signs, no indication of where they were headed.

"Did Tracy say anything to you about her father in the last few weeks?" Striker flipped through the pages in his notebook as if hunting for a tidbit he could question her about.

Claire shook her head. "Not anything that will help you."

"But you can help, can't you Dr. Daniels?" Mrs. Fuller bit her bottom lip in obvious indecision. Did her daughter reveal more than the context of their discussions? "Tracy said . . . she said you know things. Is that true?"

She tried to laugh off the question, but choked on it. "I know lots of things, Mrs. Fuller, but I don't know your ex-husband."

Misery slid through Mrs. Fullers eyes and she cast her gaze to the ground. Thin wisps of dishwater blond hair swirled around the haggard face from the light breeze. The woman looked thoroughly defeated, a sensation Claire remembered much better than she wanted to.

Claire couldn't run, not this time, no matter how dangerous. She shoved the parachute back into the pack, knowing she'd have to unpack it later and fold it correctly before she could jump again. In her haste, she'd made a mess of it.

Striker never removed his gaze from her and that, more than the awful news, made her nervous. She felt exposed, as if he could pin a crime on her, or that she'd broken some law and he only waited for his chance to arrest her. Or worse, blame her in some way for Tracy's kidnapping.

Claire broke the expectant hush hovering in the air. "Take me to her room, let me look through it a bit. If you've got some of her drawings, perhaps something her father gave her, I might be able to put something together for you."

"We've been through her room with a fine-tooth comb, you won't find anything there, Dr. Daniels." Striker turned his blue-steel gaze on the horizon, as if he'd already decided she was a waste of his time and had lost interest.

"Yes," she straightened, allowing the anger to wash along her stare, "but you're not her doctor. I am."
* * *

Claire stood in the center of the room and closed her eyes. Her back to the door, Mrs. Fuller and Detective Striker couldn't see her face and she allowed herself to relax. This was the tricky part. Her ability was fickle, never reliable. She prayed that of all the times she'd tried to force a vision, this time it would work.

Nothing happened and to keep from looking like she didn't know what she was doing, Claire went to the closet and opened the folding, white doors. A dresser took up the right half, the small girl's clothes hung on a bare, dangling a bare inch over the painted-pink surface. On the left, a stand of shelves housed toys, arts and crafts, and papers. She grabbed a stack, hesitated for the familiar internal spiral of association, and when none came, turned around.

"Are these recent?" Claire asked Mrs. Fuller

She nodded, arms crossed, hands on elbows.

Striker stepped into the room and perched on the pink and white desk. "I told you we've been through all her things already. Wouldn't we discover more at your office? Maybe I could take a look at your notes?"

Appalled, Claire spread the paintings and crayon scribbles over the frilly comforter to hide her dismay. Look at her notes? Was he kidding? "I don't think that's going to be possible, Detective Striker. I can tell you what you need to know, but my notes are privileged-even with Mrs. Fuller's consent."

He snapped his jaw shut on the argument she'd anticipated and neatly cut off. Tracy's artwork drew her attention. Typical little girl stuff-rudimentary bunny rabbits, rainbows, clouds, big sunshine in the corner . . . the same cover-up she'd witnessed in her office.

Unlike the made-for-t.v. movies that depicted strange, morbid Picasso-esque masterpieces drawn by the victimized child, most children didn't reveal their secrets as easily, unless severely disturbed, or asked to create a visual of what had happened to them-sometimes the only way they could communicate.

No, Tracy hadn't given her a secret map to Mr. Fuller's hideout, and perhaps she hadn't really expected to find one. Perhaps this side trip was her way of avoiding the living room, where the rape had occurred. She stacked the pages, getting tiny glimmers of the quiet girl painting at the table, her long, dark-honey curls tangled over one shoulder. But nothing helpful.

"Did Mr. Fuller give her a gift? Send her something?" Claire stood, replaced the paintings on the shelf and faced Mrs. Fuller in the doorway.

"Nothing. He hasn't been back here for a year, except for . . . Thursday morning. Buck mostly bothered me at the library. He nearly cost me my job. He only took Tracy. . ." She paused, breathed deep and swallowed hard. "He only took her because he's jealous. He hates that I love her more than him."

Claire's guts twisted and her mind filled with the atrocious green carpet. There was one place she would likely get a good feel for Mr. Fuller, for 'Buck', and she didn't want to go anywhere near it. Had Mrs. Fuller told Striker about the rape? She sensed the woman hadn't, that she'd been too ashamed. "Detective Striker, is . . . is Buck wanted for anything else? Does he have warrants?"

Striker shook his head. "Not since the divorce-he's been keeping his nose clean for the custody hearing next week."

"Any idea what set him off then? If he was trying to gain custody of Tracy, why did he blow it at the last minute?" Claire noticed she hadn't moved from the closet and willed herself forward. Eventually, she'd have to step onto the green carpet and sit on the sofa, her feet where Buck had raped Tracy's mother.

Mrs. Fuller-Anne-Claire's mind finally supplied-turned away, her face burning red. "Buck found out I went to dinner with Danny Grossman, from the hardware store."

What Buck had done to Anne, how he'd broken her sense of worth, violated everything Claire worked for. Fierce with determined anger, she grabbed the woman's arm. "Anne, this isn't your fault. Nothing Buck did is your fault. He's a rotten bastard and you didn't deserve to be . . . to have Tracy taken. We will get her back."

Striker straightened from his perch on the desk, but Claire didn't look his way, she was intent on getting through Anne's wall of shame. Mrs. Fuller nodded, but didn't look convinced.

"I mean it, he's the bad guy here, not you. Tracy loves you, and you've earned that love. You're a great mother." Claire shook her a little. "Did you hear me? You're a great mother. And I know, I've seen so many parents in my profession who can't begin to measure up to how well you take care of your little girl."

Light filled Anne's eyes. "Really?"

Claire nodded emphatically. Though Anne had to be at least five years her senior, she appeared no older than Tracy at that moment. "I mean every word."

Anne stared with large, beautiful grey eyes. Rimmed by pink, the color wasn't drab, or washed out in her face, but exotic, and strange looking in what otherwise might have been an unmemorable visage.

Understanding flickered in the depths before the woman's internal security system kicked in and snuffed out the light. But, the glimmer was a good start and Claire decided to ease up on her for now. There would be time later to reinforce Anne's will to live happily.

"Now, how's about a nice glass of iced tea, or soda, or anything cold?" Claire smiled politely.

"Oh!" Anne cried, instantly flustered. "Yes, please, where are my manners. I have some Kool-aid, will that be okay?"

"Dr. Daniels," Striker said, his tone impatient.

She raised a hand to stop him. "Have a glass of Kool-aid, Detective Striker."

Her tone brooked no argument and she followed Anne out the door. The detective's urgency was contagious, but swifter means of finding Tracy lay in the opposite direction than the door. Eyes on her feet, she prepared for the instant the carpet turned from the moderate tan to the sickening green of the living room. She crossed the threshold. Her heart beat against her chest and she couldn't breathe.

Here, this is the room.

A fist came from nowhere, a scream, a child crying, rage pulsed in the walls.

Claire covered her mouth with the back of her hand, blindly stepping forward. These walls remembered, the floor was soaked in lustful hatred. She shuddered.

"Dr. Daniels?" Striker asked, sounding far away.

She shook her head and struggled to approach the sofa. For Tracy, for Anne. To get the bastard. To find him. To get Tracy back. She continued the mantra around the scarred coffee table and fell, more than sat, on the old, nubby brown sofa.

"Dr. Daniels," Striker said again. "Are you sure you're all right? You look a little . . . sick."

She waved him off, wishing he'd disappear. Water ran in the kitchen and she glanced past the half bar and the Play-doh bird creature on the Formica top. Anne opened cupboards and pulled out a bag of sugar. Stick figures inside a heart, two girls holding hands, hung from a chocolate-chip cookie magnet on the fridge.

He presses his hand into the couch, the other onto the coffee table and lifts himself. Anne weeps beneath his shadow and he spits in her face.

Claire turned, her hair shielding the urge to gag from Striker. The ghost of a hand print appeared on the far cushion. She shifted on the sofa, breathed deep and lay her hand where Buck's once pressed into the soiled fabric.

She gasped as the world slid, the power of the vision stronger than any she'd felt since resigning from the Berkley Institution for the Criminally Insane.

The hair on the back of his hands is thick, dark, his fingers on the steering wheel. The turn off is ahead. He flicks his blinker on. Johnny Law won't get him on a traffic violation.

He hears Tracy crying and wishes she would stop. Already she's so like her mother he can't stand it. That bitch was always crying. Why couldn't she be happy? He'd worked at that God forsaken factory to keep her happy and all she wanted was Tracy and her damned books.

Now she'd see. She'd see how important he was to her. Without Tracy around to distract her, she'd see he was a good man, a good provider. She'd take him back. She had to.

The off ramp led to another dirt road. The old car . . .

Blue hood, doors, it was blue. Claire spied the make out of the corner of his eye, and Oldsmobile.

. . . jostled over rutted roads. "No Trespassing" signs filed neatly by in the thick forest on either side of the car. He couldn't wait to get her into the boat.

"I want Mommy . . ." Tracy wailed from the back seat.

"Shut up!" Buck roared.

Claire's throat ached suddenly with the ferocity of the cry. She saw Buck's thoughts, his vision of the place he intended to keep Tracy.

Couldn't she just shut up? He was her father for Chris'sakes. Why couldn't his own daughter love him? Didn't she know he would never hurt her?

"Dr. Daniels?"

She flexed her hand, pulled it away, and looked into the concerned eyes of Mrs. Fuller. In her hands was a glass of blood. No, not blood, Kool-aid. The clear, bluish plastic had darkened the neon red inside.

"Thank you," Claire whispered, surprised by the pain in her throat, and accepted the glass. She drank hard and fast, chugging the cold, super-sweet liquid. Her stomach tightened around the surprise of icy fluid, but she drank on, quenching the thirst that often came after a vision-as if the act dehydrated her. The sore throat she attributed to Buck's penchant for screaming.

"We're wasting time." Striker gave up the pretense of patience and stood. "As much as I had hoped you'd help us, Dr. Daniels, I have to believe you're either holding back, or don't have the information we need. I'm sorry we bothered you at all."

He refused the Kool-aid Anne offered. She looked stricken, by either his refusal, or his assertion that Claire couldn't help. Her legs wobbled and she sat in a recliner that listed to the left.

Claire couldn't stand the oppressive feeling in the room, the ugly sensations it evoked in her. Maybe if she'd been born with the ability, she might have learned how to curb the impressions she received. But she'd learned to avoid instead. She set the Kool-aid onto a useless coaster-the rings and nicks in the wood made it an almost silly afterthought-and stood.

"You're wrong, Detective Striker." She put her hands on her hips and glared. "I know where he's taken her."

Striker whirled on her. "And how do you know?"

Anne froze, a hand over her mouth, and too late Claire realized her mistake. She hunted for a believable answer, something that wouldn't sound crazy, and something that wouldn't be a lie.

"I needed to see for myself that I was right, before I gave you a false lead." She wracked her memory, thinking faster than the last time she'd been interrogated. Only now, she had something to hide. "Tracy mentioned Buck took her fishing, in the woods, north of here."

Anne shook her head. "He never took her anywhere, Dr. Daniels. She was a nuisance to him."

Claire shrugged. "He's likely mentioned it to her, at some point, Mrs. Fuller. As I said before, a lot of times children will make up stories of what they would like to be, rather than what is." Claire turned back to Striker. "You might want to write the rest of this down."

Out came the black pad again, and he added a pen from another pocket. His controlled face did little to hide his anger.

"He's driving a sky blue car. A big one, from the drawing she did. Maybe an Oldsmobile."

Striker stared as if wanted to strangle her for waiting so long to give the information.

Unable to withstand the guilt induced by his hard glare, she blurted, "Look for a cabin, maybe nothing more than a fishing house, off County Trunk C-somewhere by a lake. He's got a boat."

"All right," Striker spoke slow, studied her without blinking, a very unnatural and discomfiting look. Then he shrugged and pulled a cellphone from his pocket, punching numbers as he walked to the other side of the room. Seconds later, he gave orders to the person who answered. When he hung up, the skepticism lingered in his eyes.

Anne erupted from her chair, tears sliding down her face. "Thank you, thank you so much Dr. Daniels. I knew you'd help me get my baby back."

Claire allowed the woman to hug her, patting her back awkwardly. Weeks, maybe months, went by where no one touched Claire. Her parents understood her ability, had been there when she woke in the hospital screaming. They generally refrained from the most innocuous contact, partly out of respect, partly out of a fear she'd see more than they wanted her to. This hug revealed nothing other than the gratitude of a grieving, frightened, mother.

When Anne moved to pull away, Claire whispered into her ear. "If he ever touches you like that again, you go to the cops."

Anne, released from the embrace, looked at her with wide eyes. "You do know things."

Claire slowly nodded, slid her eyes to Striker, saw he hadn't missed a thing, but exhaled with relief at his obvious confusion. Striker wasn't the kind of man who would believe in an ability like hers. Maybe she'd be able to keep her secret a while longer. Maybe.

© Jennifer Turner, 2005