The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later, stopping in front of Addison’s distraught-looking father, who had been waiting outside the manor. He led them to the place Luke had been found in the woods. Luke was still unconscious when they heaved him onto the stretcher and carried him back to the truck. The EMTs asked questions about what had happened. Addison reassured them that all would be revealed once the police arrived on the scene. She watched the medics take him away, wishing she could go with them and be by his side, but she knew she had to stay until the police arrived. And she didn’t have to wait long. Minutes later, a patrol car pulled up. Two officers stepped out and proceeded on foot until they reached Addison in the woods.
“I’m Officer Waters,” a woman said. “What’s going on here?”
Addison explained how she’d found Luke, not realizing the barrage of questions she’d just opened herself up to.
“Were you here when it happened?” Officer Waters asked.
Addison shook her head.
“So how did you know he was out here?”
“I…umm…well…he told me.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“You saw him earlier today? What time was that?”
“Around nine, I guess.”
Officer Waters gave her an icy stare that was more suited for convicted felons than for her. “What did the two of you talk about?”
“He’s remodeling my house, so we went over some plans and then I left to meet with someone in the city.”
“Who?”
“Why does it matter?”
The second officer spoke up, a male, Officer Jackson, who was even less enthused than his partner. “Why was he even out here, alone, with a shovel?”
Both officers perfected their icy stare, eyeballing Addison for an answer. At the risk of being accused of a crime, she decided she’d had enough questions for one day. She clenched her hands together and said a silent prayer, hoping her gut feeling would pay off. “I need to show you something,” she said to both officers.
Officer Jackson looked as if he had a fresh coffee brewing in the car that he needed to get back to. Officer Waters, however, actually looked intrigued. “Let’s get on with it.”
Addison crouched down, leaning into the hole and digging her fingernails into the dirt while the two officers and her father looked on. Out of the corner of her eye she watched her father swallow—hard. He looked as if his legs were about to buckle beneath him at any moment. She dug out a foot of soil and found nothing. She dug to the left. Nothing.
“What are we supposed to be seeing here?” Officer Jackson grunted.
Addison didn’t know how much longer she could keep them there. Then she remembered the words her grandmother said earlier about the power that came with using both of her hands simultaneously. She deliberated the pros and cons in silence, not knowing what would happen if she tried pressing both hands to the ground at the same time. One glance at Officer Waters’s look of boredom and she no longer cared. If something was going to happen, it needed to happen now. With one hand firmly stuck inside a cast, she relied on her fingers, hoping it was enough. She flattened her fingers inside the hole and pressed down. After a moment the area to her right gave off a pale glow. Addison glanced up at both officers who looked at each other like they had a crazy woman on their hands. Whatever she was seeing, it was apparent that they didn’t. She slid her hand farther right. Something moved.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, but we need to move on,” Officer Jackson said. He turned to her father. “I’ll need a number for you two in case we need to get in touch again.”
Addison ignored him. She dug two fingers into the ground and wiggled them around until she felt something hard and boney. She pulled up, trusting she wouldn’t slip into another one of her visions, and breathed a small sigh of relief when she didn’t. Her fisted hand emerged from the ground just in time for Officer Jackson to start walking away.
“You’ll want to see this,” she shouted.
She unrolled her fingers, lifting her palm into the air for all to see.
Officer Waters glanced at her male counterpart and said, “What the hell?!” She removed some kind of transmitter from her waist belt, pressed a button, and spoke directly into it. “This is Waters. Get McReedy out here right away.”