Oracle: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Series (A Diana Hawthorne Supernatural Mystery Book 1), Carissa Andrews [read my book .txt] 📗

of my gifts will drain me this way. While others—the incessant, stupid cupid matches, for example—I could do for hours on end. It’s annoying. Someone out there is laughing maniacally knowing they set me up this way.

There was a time when it wouldn’t matter that I was helping people with their trivial problems. That was a loooong time ago. But good God almighty, it’s getting old dealing with the same old boring questions day in and day out for as long as I have.

I’d give my left boob to finally be able to answer some of my own damn questions for a change. Today, I’d start with who the hell that guy is and why the hell was he in my house.

Then I’d track his sorry ass down and make him buy me a new shoe and fork up the cash for some cranial massage work because, damn, my head is killing me.

I suppose after that, I’d move on to the ones I’ve been trying to answer my whole known life.

The floorboard behind me squeaks a little too loudly—right as a sunburst flashes through my vision and the darkness consumes it.

Tap, tap, tap…

For some reason, my head lulls to the side as I try to place the sound. It’s familiar but doesn’t register in my brain. My eyelids are heavy, weighted down by the over-exertion of using my abilities—and something else. My forehead thumps, and I try to reach for it, only to find my arms as heavy as my eyelids.

My eyes flicker open, but I can’t keep them that way—they roll in my head and darkness consumes me in twinkling bursts.

After a few moments, I pry my eyes open again, raising my head to damn near upright.

“Good lord, took you long enough,” a man says, from across the room. He’s sprawled across my couch, one leg draped over the arm, as he leans back, placing an elbow on the cushion behind him. He has an oddly put-together air about him as his leather jacket falls gently open, revealing his sophisticated style not many straight men know how to pull off.

His arrogance rolls off him in waves. He knows he looks good and he’s perfectly comfortable with it. Hell, I don’t need to be psychic to pick up on any of that.

The guy drums his fingertips slowly across the single pane window behind him.

Tap, tap, tap…

“Who in the hell are you?” I finally spit out. “And why are you in my house?”

Finally removing his hand from my window, he spins around to face me head on.

“Now here I was thinking you should know all those details already,” he says, as the corner of his mouth slides into an obnoxious smirk. The trimmed, dark goatee adorning his face accentuates his cheekbones and broad jaw. The deep brown bordering on black from the top of his head lacks the flashes of red his facial hair has pulled from his genetics.

I glare back at him.

Who the hell does this guy think he is?

His dark eyes twinkle mischievously, inciting the desire to want to punch him right in his smug little face. Instead, I sit up straighter and fight to keep my head upright.

“I said, who in the hell are you?” I repeat, but more slowly with the hopes he’ll actually understand the friggin’ question. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“Apparently, neither do you,” he says smugly, shrugging his shoulders.

He’s right—I get absolutely nothing from him. No name, no general motive. Not even the food he ate for lunch or the last time he took a piss.

I tilt my head to the side, trying to clear the fog from my brain.

“I tried to tell them you were likely a fake, but honestly, I didn’t know it would be so easy,” the man says, his eyebrows furrowed. “Kinda glad, considering the time constraints and all.”

“How about speaking in English here, buddy? Because I’m lost,” I say through clenched teeth.

Despite the complete zilch I’m able to read from him, there’s a strange electricity in the room. Almost as though he’s blocking me with a feedback loop, or some sort of electromagnetic something or other.

Damn, I really should pay more attention to the new-fangled science terminology.

“I don’t need your damn help,” he says, standing up from the couch in a single, graceful move. “Especially when you’d be wasting my time and their money.”

He flings a manila packet across the room to my lap and slowly crosses his arms.

Pressing my hands to the envelope, images of the little girl from this morning suddenly start rolling in—Esther. She’s not alone; someone has moved her. Nearby is a false door of some kind; probably the one she was led through. She’s not hurt, but I sense plans being made in the room adjacent to hers. She’s scared shitless—she knows she’s been gone too long and her parent’s are going to be so worried… The truth is, she doesn’t have much time. They’re planning to move her again—sell her to someone who takes children for a living and prostitutes them. The man with the puppies—Brent—he’s not the real man the cops should be looking for. He was a patsy, thanks in part to his naive nature.

Now that I’m away from Ted’s guilt, I see that now.

There’s a small home by the river—it’s not one of those fancy new multi-million dollar builds, though. It’s a well-kept 1980’s style, complete with the original orange shag carpet and olive-green walls.

“Oh my god—she—she’s not with the man with the puppies. He was the lure. They’re looking in the wrong place,” I say without being able to stop myself.

The smug man pulls up short, and for a brief moment, I fight the urge to be the one to smirk.

“What did you say?” he asks, his eyes wide.

“I don’t have time for this. I have to get this information to the police,” I say, unable to shake the vision of the carpet. There have been many kids who’ve been kept there over the