Reg leaned in closer to her crystal ball, petting Starlight and feeling the strengthening and stabilization of her powers. She stared at the outside of the crystal to start with. The shining surface reflected back her own face. After a few minutes, she was able to look past the surface of the crystal into its dark depths.
Wizard Jeffrey Wilson.
She thought his name. It was strange that it should be such a commonplace sounding name. Almost as if he had picked it to be anonymous. But he was a wizard. Not just a mediocre wizard, but according to what Damon had said, he was pretty powerful. There couldn’t be that many really powerful wizards named Jeffrey Wilson. She let her eyes defocus and waited, feeling Starlight’s warmth on her lap and his comfortable aura enveloping her. Damon shifted restlessly. Reg tried to tune him out.
Where is Wizard Jeffrey Wilson?
Is he in the Everglades?
She remembered the trip to Letticia’s house. The area she had traveled through had been very wild. Untamed. Everything was lush green. But she hadn’t been to the swampy areas that one could only reach by boat. She had just driven to Letticia’s. On increasingly ungroomed roads, but there had been roads of a sort all the way there.
She imagined herself going farther into the Everglades. Where there were no roads, but only boats. She had seen episodes on TV of some of her favorite crime shows that had investigators skimming over the surface of the water and long grass to find a body or some other clue that had been nearly swallowed up by the swamp. Was that what it was like? She couldn’t imagine anyone staying lost in those kinds of conditions for very long.
She didn’t imagine them surviving for very long, anyway.
A picture started to form in her head. She could see a shape pushing its way through long grasses and weirdly-shaped trees dripping with green moss. It was a tall, cloaked man. Reg focused on the vision, trying to sharpen the details. She could see his face under the folds of the hood. A craggy, lined face. Frightened. Looking for a way out.
Maybe he should have just stayed in one place rather than continuing to wander through the emerald jungle. Stayed still so that someone could find him. But he kept going, trying to get out. How could an old man like that be expected to walk out of a one-and-a-half million acre maze?
How had he gotten there? She hadn’t thought to ask Damon when he was telling her the few details that he knew. Did Wilson drive in? Take a boat? Was he on his own when he disappeared or was he with a tour group? Had he crashed there in a plane? Was he searching for some rare plant or animal? Sight-seeing?
She felt moved to help him. It was a very strong pull. Reg’s instincts were usually for herself over anyone else, so the feeling that she needed to help him was surprising. Without regard for her own needs or how much the payout Damon had been talking about was, she wanted to drop everything and rescue the wizard.
Skunk Man Swamp is book #10 in the Reg Rawlins Psychic Investigator series and can be found at pdworkman.com