Eye of the Falcon (Psychic Visions #12)(26)

“A progress report?”

He smiled. Annie, she didn’t sound any different. “She’s better. Still can’t put any weight on her feet. She just had a bath.”

“You put her in a bath?” she asked in surprise. “Isn’t that a little fast?”

“She requested it. She was bloody, tired, and cold.”

“That cold isn’t good. Her body should be dealing with the chills by now.”

“I don’t know how to warm her up any more than I already am. She’s eating hot soup. She’s under the covers, and she’s wearing my old sweats. She should be warm. The house is hot.” He turned to glance at the woodstove, realizing he probably needed to bring in another armload of wood to keep it going for her. “I’m hot.”

“You’re not injured. And you’re not lacking nutrition from the last however many days or weeks. Her body is fast burning through everything you can give her to eat.”

“I’d give her more, but I don’t think her stomach could handle it,” he admitted. “She’s had a bit of coffee and a bit more soup.”

“That’s good. I presume she’s asleep after the bath. When she wakes up, try to get some protein in her. Even if it’s just a couple scrambled eggs.”

“Will do.” He hung up and proceeded to finish the steak.

When the phone rang again, he didn’t see a caller ID on the screen. He answered, “Hello?”

Static and yet not static. As if somebody really was trying to get through to him. “Hello, anyone there?”

There was a funny odd buzz, like a voice from a long way away trying to reach through the static. Eagle shook his head and shut down the phone. “Sorry. Don’t know who or why you are trying to get a hold of me, but it’s not working.”

He checked his watch and realized it was past ten already. All the work he needed to get done today was done. He had phone calls he’d planned to make but hadn’t gotten to. He grabbed his phone again, pulled up his notepad with the list of local falconry clubs. The first number, he got no answer; the second number, a man answered.

Eagle said, “I’m looking for a woman named Issa. I thought she was a member of the falconry club.”

“She’s a member, but we don’t have any contact information for her. Even if we did, it’s our policy not to hand out personal information,” the voice said apologetically.

Eagle glanced at the notepad and realized he’d called a Tom Folgers. “Tom, is there anything you can tell me about her?”

“Why? Who is this?”

“I run the raptor center out of Colorado, and I have a couple falcons I was looking to have her help me with,” he improvised. “I tried calling once before but couldn’t reach anyone.”

“Sometimes no one’s here to answer the phones.” Tom seemed to calm down then. “Issa comes in sometimes. But we haven’t seen her for months now.”

“I was trying to get a list of her credentials. Can you spell her last name?”

“The last name isn’t so bad, but the first one is deadly.” He chuckled and said, “Issa’s last name is McGuire.”

“She’s not on your website.”

“No, she’s not a full member because she doesn’t have her own falcon, so she’s not on there. All the pictures there are members with their own falcons.”

Eagle nodded. “That makes sense.” He now realized all the pictures were of one human and one falcon.

“She went to the university here too. I know she just finished her doctorate, so you might find more information from them on her.”

“Thank you very much.” He hung up, not wanting to push the issue and ring any alarm bells for Tom. Eagle looked at her last name, typed it into the search bar, and came up with several articles. One was an obituary with another name. Marie McGuire.

Age sixty-two, deceased on August 26. That was five weeks ago.

Pulling on his search skills, mostly learned in the military, he hunted down property records to see where Issa might’ve been living. Her mother’s apartment came up. As well as a PO box for Issa but no physical address.

Interesting. Eagle remembered she had talked about a cabin, which could mean very rural, as in it didn’t have anything other than a lot number.

With the PO box number, he phoned the post office and asked about her.

“Not sure I can tell you anything. She comes and goes. Haven’t seen her in a while though.”

“I’m trying to find her place.”

“I talked to her a couple times. She lives up north of the city. Lots of wide open country up there, and that’s the way she likes it, she said.”

“Good enough, thanks.” He realized the area was over an hour away. He could take a trip out this afternoon and a part of him felt like she should go with him. Only she wasn’t in any shape to handle that. As he sipped his coffee, static, like he’d heard on the phone, slammed into his head. He grabbed his hair and yelled, “What the fuck?”

Instantly the static toned down to a dull, dry background noise. And a voice said, “Sorry.”

Eagle hopped to his feet and spun in a circle. “Who just said that?”

But instead of a voice, a number kept flashing in his head. He grabbed his pen and wrote down a ten-digit number. He frowned. Was that a phone number? As soon as he had it on paper, the confusion in his head emptied. He grabbed his phone and dialed. When a man’s voice came on the other end, Eagle asked, “Who the hell are you?”