It was over halfway through April, and sweet scents of summer blossoms drifted on the air. Western Washington is a rainy place, often cloudy and wet, but the few clear spring nights Mother Nature doles out are a paradise of green leaves and bursting flowers.
My mind was almost at peace, drifting in several different directions, when I heard the first whimper. Wade stopped, listening. His expression went blank for a moment, and then twisted slightly.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Here, over here." He ducked away and pushed aside a shrub to our right. To my surprise, a small boy practically boiled out from underneath and darted in a beeline for the trees.
"Leisha, help me get him."
Gliding into instant motion, I flew past Wade, whose long strides were actually quite fast, and I focused on the spot the boy had disappeared into. Once inside the forested area, I was running blind and stopped to listen. Wade's voice blew past me.
"It's all right, Raymond. If you come out we'll get you something warm to eat."
Raymond?
How had he managed to pick so much out of a fleeing target's mind? Perhaps children are more open than adults.
"We should leave this place," I called. "When he gets tired, he'll go home."
"No, he can't go home. Go to your left. He's right ahead of you."
Children are an alien species. Hunting them for life force wasn't my style, and I couldn't remember ever having spoken to one. But Wade seemed dead set on catching this boy. Small shuffling sounds in the bushes ahead caught my attention, and I sprang forward, the tips of my fingers grasping a small arm. I struggled for a better grip.
He bit me. The little shit sank his teeth into my hand, hard enough to break skin. It didn't really hurt. Lifting his kicking feet off the ground, I whispered, "You wouldn't like it if I bit you back."
Wade bounded up beside me, his nearly white hair glowing like a beacon. "Here," I said. "You take him."
My companion's arms were more adept at holding children than mine. "It's all right, Raymond. No one's going to hurt you."
The boy stilled as Wade kept whispering soft words in his ear. The poor kid was a mess. About five or six years old, with dirty clothes and long, filthy hair. His eyes were wild, and low grunting sounds escaped his mouth. He seemed incapable of speech.
His short legs wrapped around Wade's waist. Wade put one arm around the child's back and the other beneath his bottom for support. Somehow the sight of Wade holding him moved me. Edward used to say it takes all kinds of people to make a world.
"What now?" I asked.
"He's been neglected. We need to get our car from the hotel and drive him to the authorities."
"Are you crazy? You're talking about cops, right? Cops?"
"It's eleven o'clock at night. Social Health and Welfare closed down hours ago. We don't have a choice."
"Sure we do. I'm not going near a police station."
"You have to! Dominick may be able to block his thoughts from me, but I can still feel him coming. This won't take long. We're just going to feed him and then find someone else to take over."
What was he thinking? We could now be linked to three bizarre deaths, and he wanted to walk right into a Seattle precinct to turn in a lost child? No way.
"You aren't listening to me!" Wade spat at Sergeant Ben Cordova of Precinct Seventeen in west Seattle. "He hasn't been beaten. He lives with his father and his father's girlfriend. They leave him alone for days at a time, with no food in the house. No one's ever changed his bedsheets as far back as he can remember. He hasn't attended any school. They don't wash his clothes."
Sergeant Cordova looked back with the eyes of a dead fish. "Are there any physical marks of abuse?"
"How about malnutrition, you stupid fuck?"
Oh, great, there it went. I'd been standing in the back of a crowded police office, watching Wade argue with this dispassionate sergeant for nearly twenty minutes. The more intensely bored Cordova appeared, the higher Wade's voice rose. And now he was swearing.
"There's no need for that, sir. This falls between social services and the boy's father."
"No, you can't send him back home for a few days. Not for five minutes."
I moved up behind them. "Leave the boy here. They'll know what to do."
"They don't. That's the point. The minute we walk out that door, this joker's going to call his father." He whirled back to Cordova. "Get your captain out here."
"He's not available, sir."
"Get him out here, now!"
"Is there a problem?" a deep voice asked from behind me. I turned to see an enormous man wearing a suit and tie.
"Yes, there's a problem," Wade snapped. "Your sergeant has his head up his ass."
"I'm Captain Baker. Can I help you?"
"No, you can help this boy. He needs a clean place to sleep."
"And you are?"
Until that point, my angry friend had avoided discussing himself, even though Cordova had asked for ID three times. "My name is Dr. Wade Sheffield. I've been the staff psychologist at Captain Joseph McNickel's Eighth Precinct in Portland, Oregon, for the past four years. If you like, we can call him at home and wake him up for verification."
That sounded dangerous to me since Wade had resigned under such odd circumstances, but maybe McNickel would back him up.
Captain Baker crouched down and smiled at Raymond, who pulled deeper into Wade's chest. "And how much do you know about this little guy?"
"Not much. His name is Raymond Olson. His father's name is Robert Olson. They live somewhere in Kirkland at an apartment complex called Greenwich Village-at least that's what the sign out front says. He's been starved and neglected… He can't even talk."
"How did you become involved?"
"I found him in the park a few hours ago."
The captain's brow wrinkled. "So how did you learn this much information if he can't speak?"
Wonderful. This kept getting better by the moment. Not only was Wade irrational, but he'd just backed himself into a corner. "Please, just check my story without sending him home. If you have any pity at all."
The room fell quiet for a moment. Then Baker said, "A friend of mine-well, my wife-works for social services. Let me go call her and have her come down."
Wade looked into the man's eyes for a few seconds, and then he relaxed. Turning to me, he nodded and said, "It's okay. He's not lying."
I'd never seen him like this, not quite this worked up. In all other aspects of his own self-image, he was sometimes unsure, often timid. But when it came to trusting his psychic ability, he exuded a confidence that made other people listen. Was he even aware how angry, how aggressive, he sounded?
We waited quietly together on a bench for nearly an hour-Wade still holding Raymond in his lap-until a middle-aged woman who looked overworked, underpaid, and slightly frazzled walked in. I didn't have to be psychic to figure out she was Baker's wife.
She spotted us in a hurry and flashed a tired smile. Wade's tight muscles unclenched. Even with her hair flying all over, this woman had kind eyes and a tough expression. Good combination.
I pulled back to let her speak alone with Wade. He took her phone number, said a few words to Raymond, and then handed him to Mrs. Baker. There was a moment of panic on the boy's part, but it passed. He was probably so lost by then that up from down didn't matter.
As we walked back outside to our car, Wade still didn't look happy. "I feel bad leaving him there."
"There's nothing else you can do. He's got even less chance with us right now than with his own family."
"That doesn't make me feel any better."
"You can't save the world. It's already lost."
What an unexpected chain of events. How selfish I'd been. The boy, of course, meant nothing. Children have been starving since the inception of time. Raymond was as common as dirt.