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Winona Hart had been here with her friends She hadfrom the northern side of the beach area--a hippie who had told them she was a medium, and that they needed to be careful because of the moon The woman had left via a path that led back to the road

There was no other access to the beach, unless you caht have been taken by boat, but none of the kids hadone The file had told hiel and Mindy They had e had all been cleaned up

Winona had disappeared at some previous point, but no one remembered when she had left the party There had been too many kids, most of them drunk or stoned

Caleb walked into the pine forest to the north A trail of beaten-down vegetation led away from the sand, and he followed it

It curved around and joined the ht have been followed by the kidnapper, who broke off into the woods and observed therab Winona Could the mystery woman have been the kidnapper? It was certainly possible

And Winona, fascinated as she was, ht have led her to the road while the others were busy drinking and sone willingly, fascinated by everything the woman had told her

He took a seat on the sand about two feet beyond where the waves washed up and closed his eyes

There was a reason why he had gone to work for Adam Harrison, and this was the time and place to put his mind to work He still had a tendency to balk at the idea, but he’d learned that whatever it was--logic operating in the far recesses of his mind, an ability everyone possessed but didn’t kno to tap into--it helped stopped murderers And if he could prevent the death of another hu, then it would be cowardly, perhaps even cri he could His ht of them, weren’t available on call or at all times, but so that everyone else had ht into the truth, find a clue to follow

The sea breeze drifted by him, and he remembered the day when he had discovered that he could use intense concentration to somehow intuit what had happened at a crime scene He still refused to believe that he was actually seeing the past, that so psychic was at work The way he saw it, he just put the pieces together and, like a file

But that first time…

He’d been on a beach then, as well

His cousin Elisia, just seven years old, had so at a busy beachside picnic area People had been everywhere, eating and laughing Aballoon aniht the children It had been easy to lose track of one little girl

She hadn’t been gone row frantic Everyone had assumed she was still with the other children, ere all playing hide-and-seek, until his aunt had realized Elisia wasn’t with them anymore

Caleb had been twelve at the time, and the last time he had seen Elisia, she had s away to hide

The police had been called i and searching, Caleb had stood to one side, retreating soht, his cousin’s pretty and precocious face had risen before his eyes He’d seen her sood place to hide, and he saw the balloonher that she could hide inside the restroom

Someone had already looked inside the restroo toward them anyway You couldn’t see her at first Her killer had folded her tiny body and left it on a toilet, then jammed the door shut

If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the look on his aunt’s face when her child was found He would never forget the sound of her hysterical sobs He would never forget anything about that day, the heat of the sun, the feel of the breeze, the sht the clown And a cop had told Caleb that the otten away in the tiether, if it hadn’t been for Caleb It had been small comfort for the loss of Elisia

He’d been enamored of Jacques Cousteau up until that point, convinced that he was going to become an expert diver and deep sea explorer He’d planned to find lost colonies and sunken treasure

After that day, he’d knoithout question that he wanted to be a cop To do so, to stop predators like the one who had killed his cousin

He never forgot the past, but he didn’t dwell on it For years he hadn’t kno to use his "talent," not through his days in the e or the academy He hadn’t understood his ability until he ht hi only that he consider coations to use his talent in return

But to this day, Caleb hated clowns

And today…

This lonely beach was the perfect spot If he opened his , the kids celebrating, and Winona…He would see what had happened to Winona

And he had to do it, because there was a killer on the loose The threads were beginning to fit together, and he had to add to the pattern hatever he could discover in the depths of his mind

For a moment he just listened to the sounds around hiently The wind, barely a whisper in the trees In his ht