Read Online Never Saw It Coming: (An eSpecial from New American Library) by Linwood Barclay - Free Book Online Page A

closed tight.
    “Do you mind if I sit down?” she asked. It was always a lot harder for them to throw you out when you were sitting down.
    He pointed to an armchair. Before she could sit, she had to move a ball of green yarn with two blue, foot-long knitting needles speared through it. She tucked the bundle over to the edge of the chair.
    “Have you ever heard of me?” she asked as he took a seat across from her on the couch.
    “No,” he said.
    She nodded. “Well, it’s not as though I’m famous or anything. But I do have something of a reputation. Just last week I helped a couple find their son. He’d been depressed and they were worried he might do harm to himself. We found him just in time, too.”
    “My wife was not depressed,” Garfield said.
    Keisha nodded. “Of course. Every case is different.”
    He eyed her as though she might already have had a chance to pocket the silverware. “Why don’t you tell me what it is, exactly, that you do.”
    “As I said, I offer my services to people when they’re in crisis. When they desperately need to find someone. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions first before I start getting into how I do what I do?”
    “I suppose not.”
    “I saw you and your daughter—Melissa, is it?”
    He nodded.
    “I saw you on the news, making your appeal. Asking for information about Mrs. Garfield, asking her, if she was watching, to come home so you could stop worrying.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I was wondering, what sort of tips have the police received since then? I’m assuming they’ve been in touch.”
    “There’s been nothing. At least nothing helpful. A couple of nuts called in.”
    Keisha nodded sympathetically, as though this was about what she expected. “And aside from waiting for tips, what other efforts have the police been making to find Mrs. Garfield?”
    “They’ve been trying to trace her movements since she left the house Thursday night. That’s the night she does the grocery shopping, but she never got to the store.”
    “Yes, I knew that.”
    “And her credit cards haven’t been used. I know they’ve been showing her picture around to all the places she usually goes, talking to her friends, talking to people she works with. All the things you might expect.”
    Another sympathetic nod. “But as with the tips, nothing very helpful. Is that what you’re telling me, Mr. Garfield?”
    “It would seem so,” he said.
    Keisha Ceylon paused for what she thought was a dramatically appropriate period of time, then said, “I believe I can help you where the police cannot.”
    “Is that right?”
    “The police do what they do, but they are not trained to—what’s the phrase?— think outside the box. What I offer is something more unconventional.”
    “I’m waiting.”
    She looked him in the eye. “I see things, Mr. Garfield.”
    His mouth opened, but he was briefly at a loss for words. Finally he said, “You see things.”
    “That’s right, I see things. Let me make this as simple and as straightforward as I can, Mr. Garfield. I have visions.”
    A small laugh erupted from him. “Visions?”
    Keisha was very careful to maintain her cool. “Yes,” she said simply. Draw him out. Make him ask the questions.
    “What, uh, what kind of visions?”
    “I’ve had this gift—if you can call it that, I’m not really sure—since I was a child, Mr. Garfield. I have visions of people in distress.”
    “Distress,” he said quietly. “Really.”
    “Yes,” she said again.
    “And you’ve had a
vision
of my wife? In distress?”
    She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I have.”
    “I see.” A bemused smile crossed his lips. “And you’ve decided to share this vision with
me
, and not the police.”
    “As I’m sure you can understand, Mr. Garfield, the police are often not receptive to people with my talents. It’s not just that they’re skeptical. When I’m able to make progress where they have not, they feel it reflects badly on them. So