The Third Eye by Lois Duncan Read Free Book Online Page A

do you want me to tell you, that I’ve got psychic powers or something?” Karen meant the question to be sarcastic, but it came out sounding defensive. She paused, and then her curiosity got the better of her. “Why are you interested?”
    “There’s another kid missing.”
    “There’s
another
—”
    “Carla Sanchez, age eight. She disappeared last week.”
    “It’s surprising that there’s been nothing about it on television,” Mrs. Connors said.
    “It hasn’t had coverage. There was an article in the paper right after it happened, but it didn’t make the front page, and the networks didn’t pick up on it. The story doesn’t have as much news value because it looks like a custodial kidnapping. The parents are divorced. The dad was in town, and when he left, he apparently took Carla with him.”
    “If the mother has custody, you’d think she could get her back,” Karen said. “Couldn’t she take it to court or something?”
    “She could if she knew where to find them. Sanchez is a drifter. He’s never held a job for more than a few months at a time. It’s hard to trace somebody like that. The mother dotes on that little girl. She’s climbing the walls.”
    “That’s sad,” Karen said. “I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah, it’s sad.” Officer Wilson was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I was hoping that, maybe, you’d want to help us. If you could do a little ‘guessing,’ the way you did when the Zenner kid was missing, maybe you could tell us where to look for this one.”
    “Karen’s no psychic,” said Mrs. Connors. “There’s no way in the world that she can do what you’re suggesting.”
    “Maybe not. Then, again, who’s to say for sure? What’s there to lose by giving it a try?”
    “It wouldn’t work,” Karen told him. “What I felt about Bobby was based on personal emotions. I wasn’t just worried; I felt responsible. With this girl, Carla, that wouldn’t be a factor. I’ve never even met her.”
    “Will you just drive out to the house with me?” the officer asked her. “If you met her mother, looked around her bedroom…”
    “That’s out of the question,” Mrs. Connors said. “Karen is not going to go to some strange house and play detective. The whole idea is ridiculous.”
    The tone of voice was an echo from Karen’s childhood. It evoked memories of the hundreds of past occasions when decisions that pertained to her own welfare had been made without consulting her. The fact that her mother would, even today, assume the right to speak for her as though she were a puppet sparked an unaccustomed flash of rebellion.
    “Really, Mom,” she said testily, “don’t you think that’s up to me?”
    “I’ll have her back in a couple of hours,” Officer Wilson said. “If she doesn’t get any feelings about Carla’s whereabouts, then that will be the end of it.”
    “And if she does? What then?” Mrs. Connors asked. “If, by some miracle, she
does
feel something,
does
manage somehow to point you in the right direction, then she’ll be marked for life as a freak.”
    “That won’t happen,” Officer Wilson assured her. “Any information Karen provides for us will be confidential. It canonly be classified as guesswork, so no source needs to be identified.” He turned back to Karen. “Are you willing to give this a shot?”
    “She is not,” Mrs. Connors said firmly.
    Karen deliberately ignored her mother and looked the man in the eye.
    “Yes, I am,” she said.

CHAPTER 6
    The Sanchez home was on the outskirts of Albuquerque in the rural area referred to by its residents as the Valley. The drive there took them along the edge of the Rio Grande. The normally sluggish river, awakened from its winter lassitude by the heavy rains, was rushing brown and high.
    Along its banks the cottonwoods were budding, their leaves a pale, almost translucent green in the morning sunlight. Small nameless flowers, which would have been called weeds if they had popped up