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COLD CASE

by L.L. Bartlett

    Copyright © 2010 by L. L. Bartlett

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    All rights reserved.
    No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying,
recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission
in writing from the author.

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

    The Jeff Resnick Mysteries
    Murder on the Mind
    Dead In Red
    Cheated By Death
    Bound By Suggestion
    A Leap of Faith

    "A compelling mystery that will grip you
tightly and not let go--even after you've finished reading."
    ~ Leann Sweeney, nationally best-selling
author of the Yellow Rose and Cats In Trouble mysteries
    L.L. Bartlett’s “Cold Case” tells the
emotionally packed story of Jeff Resnick, a psychic, who is hired
to solve the disappearance of a four-year-old boy. The conclusion
to this story is bound to have you questioning those around
you.
    ~ The Romance Readers Connection

COLD CASE

by L.L. Bartlett

    “ You’re not the first psychic to come
through Paula’s apartment, Mr. Resnick.”
    Hands on hips, Dr. Krista Marsh stood before
me. Her heels gave her an inch or more on me. Blonde and lithe, and
clad in a turquoise dress with jet beads resting on her ample
breasts, she was the best looking thing in that lower middle-class
apartment.
    “ I don’t use that term. Con-artists,
liars and frauds take advantage of people with problems. I’m just
someone who sometimes knows more than I’m comfortable
knowing.”
    Truth was, I hadn’t wanted to be there at
all, giving my impressions on the fate of four-year-old Eric
Devlin. He’d gone missing on an early-autumn evening some eight
months before. One minute he’d been there—riding his Big Wheel in
front of the apartment building—the next he was gone. Like every
other good citizen, I’d read all the stories in the newspapers and
seen the kid’s picture on posters and on TV. The only place I
hadn’t seen it was on the back of a milk carton.
    I was there as a favor to my
brother—actually, my older half brother—Dr. Richard Alpert, who’d
joined me on that cold gray evening in early May. Richard was Paula
Devlin’s internist at the university’s low-income clinic. He liked
Paula and hated how not knowing her son’s fate was tearing her
apart. He hoped I could shed some light on the kid’s
disappearance.
    I’m not sure why Dr. Marsh was there. Maybe
as Paula’s therapist she thought she could protect her patient from
someone like me.
    So, there I stood, in the middle of Paula’s
modestly furnished living room, trying to soak up vibes that might
tell me the little boy’s fate.
    Paula waited in the doorway, looking fearful
as I examined the heart of her home, which she’d transformed into a
cottage industry, distributing posters, pins and flyers in the
search for the boy—all to no avail. Vacuum cleaner tracks on the
carpet showed her hasty clean-up prior to our arrival. Too thin,
and looking older than her thirty-two years, Paula’s spirit and her
determination to find her missing son had sustained her over the
long months she’d been alone. The paper had never mentioned a Mr.
Devlin.
    “ I don’t know if I can help you,” I
told Paula.
    She flashed an anxious look at Richard, then
back to me.
    “ Where would you like to