But something else was happening. A boost, a rev, a jolt of energy. It was different from a shot of espresso. Smoother and steadier. It was…Gabe.
The man wasn’t a leech. He gave rather than took. Anchored rather than disrupted.
The clouds deepened in color and began to part. Riley felt herself being pulled into them, zooming through them, their cool moisture soothing her overheated skin.
“I see something,” she announced as the clouds thinned a little more.
It was a tall, hefty figure slowly trotting down the sidewalk. One running shoe in front of the other.
“He is running,” Vision Gabe observed from somewhere.
“Slowly,” Riley added. “He’s on the riverfront. Close to our house!”
Then suddenly there was a hard tug, and she was no longer watching Larry plod along the riverfront. She was dragged forcibly up and back. “Hey, I can see our house from here!”
A moment later she was floating above Larry’s neighborhood. Her stomach dipped as she plummeted toward his townhouse like she was on a cosmic roller coaster.
“Continue to breathe deeply,” Gabe reminded her.
“I need to start wearing motion sickness patches for this crap,” she complained as her vision swayed. One second, she was standing outside Larry’s door, and the next she was passing through it like a ghost.
“Am I a ghost? Am I dead? Did Larry kill me?”
“All is well. Your guides are just moving you through the vision.”
To be safe, Riley counted her fingers and toes to make sure they all made it through the door with her.
“They are trying to show you something.”
She looked up and saw clouds swirling around the stack of mail on Larry’s dining room table. There was a package that seemed to glow brighter than the others. But it wasn’t actually glowing.
It was sparkling.
“Oh shit. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Riley whispered.
Gingerly she reached out to pick up the box, which was blinding in its sparkle now.
“Does this box mean something to you?” Vision Gabe asked.
“I think Larry Rupley got a glitter bomb in the mail and never opened it.”
34
10:49 a.m., Tuesday, August 18
“Nick!”
The panic in Riley’s tone had him shoving Canon out of his way and rushing to her side. Her nose was twitching like she was mid-allergy attack.
“What is it? What did you see?”
“I think Larry Rupley got a glitter bomb.”
“Fuck! The mail on the table,” he said, catching up quickly.
“The return addresses on the packages are all different. You wouldn’t have known.”
“What’s all this fuss?” Elanora demanded.
