Heather Graham Pozzessere - If Looks Could Kill

She nodded and hung up, then sighed, glad because the terrifying vividness of the dream was already fading. She hated it when she had such dreams.

She drew a brush through her hair. Well, she’d called Jimmy. She would do what she could, as she had a few times in the past. Thankfully, it was rare that the dreams came to her. When she could help, she did. Yet she knew that she couldn’t cure all the evils in the world. She couldn’t even cure all the problems in her own family.

The dreams had started with her mother’s death.

She lay down on her bed again, staring up at the ceiling, wishing she didn’t feel so overcome by memories. She hadn’t had any strange visions for five years after her mother’s death.

Then she’d had the first of the dreams.

In her dream she was walking away from an unknown house. Quietly. Tiptoeing. She realized that she held a gun. She heard noises and saw a car. She was angry, somehow aware that it was her car, and that someone was trying to steal it.

She crept out and raised the gun….

There was a violent pain in her arm, and she cried out, then woke up, rubbing her arm and shaking.

She was in her bedroom at her father’s house, the room she shared with her sister Kaila. Kaila was across the room in her own bed, just waking up, rubbing her eyes. “Madison? Madison, what’s wrong?” She jumped out of bed and came hurrying over to Madison’s bed, sitting beside her.

They often fought, as most sisters, especially those so close in age, fought. But there was also a warmth between them. They were very unalike in personality, yet so similar in appearance that they might have been identical twins.

“It was nothing, just a dream,” Madison assured Kaila quickly.

“Did you hurt your arm?”

“What? No?” But she was still rubbing her arm, even though there was nothing wrong with it. She shook her head sheepishly. “No, no, I’m fine. I had a nightmare, but it’s all right now. Sorry I woke you.”

“What was it about?”

“It was stupid. I was somebody else, in a different house. Someone was trying to steal my car, and I had a gun and was going to stop what was happening—then someone hit my arm, and I woke up. Dumb, huh?”

Kaila shrugged. “Well, different. You sure you’re okay now?”

Tomorrow they would be fighting over makeup or who had taken whose new jeans. But for now…Madison nodded, and Kaila gave her a quick, fierce hug and went back to bed.

A few days later, when Madison still felt the dream nagging at her, she called Jimmy Gates. He wasn’t in, and, feeling foolish, she left no message except her first name.

That afternoon, when Madison was driven home by Darryl Hart, the Hart-Throb of the school, she was startled to see a car in her father’s expansive driveway, with a familiar man leaning against it. Detective Jimmy Gates. He was a little bit older now, showing premature signs of silver at his temples. He looked distinguished, befitting a man who’d gotten a number of promotions and citations during the five years since Lainie’s murder.

She stared at him, feeling increasingly uneasy. She shouldn’t have called him. She’d just had a dream, that was all.

Darryl behaved like the perfect high school stud he was, setting protective hands on her shoulders. “Who is he? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Darryl. He’s an old friend of the family. I think we probably need to talk alone. Call me later tonight?”

“Sure. Except maybe I shouldn’t leave you alone with him. So much strange stuff happens these days.”

“It’s all right, Darryl. He’s a cop.”

Darryl drove away unhappily, watching her in the rearview mirror as he backed out of the drive. Jimmy smiled at her. “Hi.”

“Hi, Jimmy. You still playing ‘Miami Vice’?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “You know there’s no such thing,” he said.

“Homicide,” she said flatly.

“Yeah, I’m still homicide. And I need to know why you called.”

She hesitated, then told him about the dream, apologizing for calling him while trying to sound matter-of-fact and not like a fool.

Jimmy looked off into the distance, hesitating, then stared at her. “Have you heard about the Peterson case?”

She nodded and tried to pretend that a strange, cold sensation wasn’t sweeping over her. She’d heard. Everyone in the city had heard. Earl Peterson had gotten his legally licensed handgun out of the cabinet where he kept it carefully under lock and key, to go outside when he heard noises by his car. He had tussled with someone outside and been killed with his own gun. He’d been found by his wife at six o’clock the following morning.

“I think maybe you can help me,” Jimmy said.

“You do?” She shouldn’t have called him. She felt ill. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help him—she just wished she didn’t have the knowledge to do so.

“You have something, Madison. Something special. Will you help me?”

She hesitated. Her father wouldn’t like it, but she was almost eighteen. She had seen Mrs. Peterson sobbing softly on television, and if she could do anything to ease the woman’s suffering, she would.

She walked toward the car, and Jimmy opened the passenger door for her. She slid into the seat.

They drove to the crime scene.

A BMW sat in a tree-lined drive. Madison walked over to it, so alarmed by the cold, dark sensation sweeping over her that she nearly backed away. Only the memory of Mrs. Peterson’s tearful appeals kept her moving.

Then she stood still.

She closed her eyes. She had a vision of night; of a feeling of anger. She could hear breathing, controlled, growing heavier. Mr. Peterson. She saw his hand, saw the weapon he held as he carefully, angrily moved around the BMW toward the large, shadowy figure trying to break into the car. She started violently as a second figure—unnoticed until then—suddenly stepped from the shadow of a large palm tree to slam his arm down on Mr. Peterson’s. Mr. Peterson dropped the gun with a gasp. Madison cried out, feeling the pain in her arm—the same pain she had experienced in her dream. She hunched down, hugging her arm to her body. Seeing.

The man picked up the gun. Mr. Peterson looked up at him. “Now, wait—” Peterson began.

The gunman, a tall, thin white man with a blond crew cut, looked down at Peterson and calmly pulled the trigger twice.

Madison felt the force of the bullets ripping into her chest. She didn’t cry out, but she clutched her breast, feeling the impact.

And the cold. The awful cold assailing Peterson as his lifeblood began to drain away…

And still she saw. Saw the killer turn with his shadowy companion and race across the street into a heavily overgrown vacant lot.

The killer paused and started to run back, but his companion stopped him, urging him forward again. Madison saw them run again, saw until the icy fingers of death eroding Peterson’s vision turned the picture to black.

Jimmy was at her side, helping her up, trembling himself. “I shouldn’t have done this. Jesus, look at you. You’re soaking-wet, shaking…”

She shook her head vehemently. “I’m all right. I’m all right. Honestly.” She hesitated. “I can give you a description of the killer.”

Jimmy ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not sure I believe this myself. How am I going to get anyone else to believe that you can…see things?”

“Cops do make use of…of…” she began, but broke off, wincing.

“Psychics,” Jimmy supplied.

She shook her head. “I’m not psychic. This has only happened to me twice. But I can give an artist a good description of the killer.”

Madison did give the police a description, and an artist created a damned good sketch of the man.