Jacinda didn’t remember how she got home. Vague recollections of telling the cab driver her address, but the dizziness had been so bad, she could only focus on not throwing up inside the cab.

Once inside the front door, she slid to the floor, hoping her parents weren’t home. The pain fueled the dizzy feeling that made her feel as if she was floating. How could her skull be hurting this bad, but her brain feel like it was not attached?

“Jac?”

Her mother’s voice was garbled. She tried to lift her head but couldn’t find the strength. It happened again, Mom, is what she wanted to say, but was afraid if she tried to talk, she would be sick.

“Oh no, baby, not again.”

She could feel her mother move her off the floor. She was sure she was moving her own feet, but couldn’t be certain; she’d have to ask when she came to again. Just please don’t let me throw up on my mother, she prayed silently.

“I knew going to such a large, public place was going to be bad. So many people, too many things to touch.”

She recognized the worry in her mother’s voice and could hear the fear. She’d had to try, just once more to know this would happen to her everywhere, every time. She had only wanted to help an old man get his stuff into his car. The vile thoughts in his mind were hidden behind a warm smile. How could she have ever guessed?

Jac felt her mom’s gentle hands touch her forehead, trying to soothe the ache.

“I’ll bring you a cool compress to help with the nausea. Just close your eyes and focus on staying calm.”

Closing her eyes, Jac took a deep, slow, cleansing breath. Her head was still swimming. I’m such a freak. Wasn’t it bad enough when they pulled me out of school? Thirteen and forced to live without a social life. She wondered if her friends really missed her, there hadn’t been many phone calls in the last few months. I’ll be the ghost no one ever sees.

Rolling slowly and carefully onto her side, not sure which was worse, headache, dizziness, or the urge to throw up all over the place. Her mother’s voice carried from the hallway. She’d called her dad, which wasn’t surprising. She supposed she was lucky her parents hadn’t labeled her a mutant child and put her in some hospital to be studied. They were one of a kind, that much she knew. How many parents would be so accepting of a daughter that saw the past through furniture and other objects? Or that saw someone’s emotions by touching them? Not many, she guessed.

“We’ll get through this, Jac—no matter what it takes.”

She relaxed and let the sleep she was fighting pull her under further. Her mother’s words meant everything to her.

She stared up at the beams before her eyes rolled closed again, her arms were suddenly so heavy she didn’t want to move.

Blinking she watched him as the tightness in her chest increased and her stomach heaved again—she couldn’t struggle against it anymore…her face was so hot…so cold…

She focused on him through the blurriness for as long as she could and knew, somehow, they would find him…

Jacinda glared at the phone for a second and then put it back to her ear. “Thanks. Somewhere in the office really narrows it down for me, Sandy.” She sighed. “I’ll call you later. I am tearing this place apart until I find that stupid receipt.” She snarled at the giggle on the other end of the phone.

“Don’t get lost in there. You’re supposed to meet me in two hours.”

Jacinda stood up and studied the office, trying to decide on a starting point. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there.” Hanging up the phone, she put her hands on her hips and surveyed the piles of folders and papers scattered all over the two desks in the small, cluttered space.

Sighing, she grabbed a hair clip off the desk and twisted up her long dark hair. She frowned when it took two attempts to get most of it secured in the clip. One of these times, she was going to give in and cut it all off. She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. Of course, she’d been saying that for most of her adult life, so the chances of it actually happening were not high.

“Okay, so if I were a paid bill, where would I be hiding?” She hefted a box up from the floor. Being short did not help when your desktop reached your waist. Pulling out a handful of envelopes, she started shuffling through them. “Thanks for talking me out of a filing cabinet, Sandy—, boxes are so much more organized…” She smirked. Her friend probably meant for her to actually label the boxes and put them in the large closet. It was on her list of things to do. Eventually.

Halfway through the second box, she was mumbling obscenities for procrastinating with keeping some sort of order. Someday, an amazing client was going to walk through that door and money would fall from the sky. She smirked. Right, you ninny, the dust from the boxes has clogged your brain. Sighing, she pulled out more envelopes. Be careful what you wish for, she thought as she dug in again.

By the time she reached the fourth box, she was ready to throw them all in a trash bin and light it on fire. “You’d think if I were one of the few paid bills, I’d be jumping right out of the box to be seen.” She slid her hands lightly over the papers. Nothing. “Couldn’t have a skill that would be useful when I needed it could I?” She sifted through another pile. “Oh no, I get the ability to see, but never anything I want…”

“Am I interrupting?”

Jacinda spun around towards the door. A tall, tailored blonde woman stood in the doorway. Her eyes were darting all over the messy room. Jacinda straightened up and brushed her hands off on her jeans. “No, of course not.” She looked around the room. “Please ignore the mess. I’ve been—sorting things.” The woman looked upset, but Jacinda resisted the urge to touch her and find out for herself if she truly was. “May I help you?” She watched her look down at a small card she held and then glanced around the room.

“I’m, uh, looking for a Jacque Brown.”

Jacinda resisted the urge to stomp her foot at the masculine pronunciation of her name yet again. Was the letter k really that necessary? “I’m Jac Brown.” She studied her; there was something vaguely familiar about her. “Do I know you?” The blonde woman looked relieved.

“I’m Amanda Azaire.” She held up the card and looked at the shorter woman. “I found your card in my sister’s things.” She glanced around. “Can—can I come in for a moment?”

Azaire. Why did she know that name? She motioned to the small table and two chairs in the corner. “Please, come in and sit.” Azaire cosmetics. That was it. The woman’s sister, what was her name? Lonie? Laura? Leslie …

“My sister Lanie is missing.”

Lanie. She studied the woman sitting at the table looking suddenly lost and childlike. “Ah, right, I helped your sister earlier this year.” She sat down and chewed the inside of her lip for a moment. “What do you mean 'missing'?”

Large gray eyes looked back at her. “I haven’t been able to reach her for days.” She wrung her hands together in her lap. “That’s not like Lanie. She’s never out of touch. We were supposed to be going away a few days, she would have let me know if—if…”

Not needing any sort of special abilities to know what came next, Jacinda reached over and set a box of Kleenex in front of her. She sat through the sniffling and tears for a few moments. “I don’t do that sort of investigating, Miss Azaire.”

She sniffled again. “Please call me Mandy.” She took a slow, shaky breath. “I know you don’t, but I’ve already talked to the police.” She took another breath. “And they say I need to file a formal report.” She paused, biting her bottom lip for a moment. “To do that, I’d have to tell Daddy and if—if Lanie is just off somewhere, somewhere…”

“Oh, I see.” Tell Daddy? She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Well, okay, so Daddy running the largest cosmetics industry might run into some serious problems if word got out one of his children were missing, or worse, thought to be missing, when they’re just off somewhere being human. “I really don’t know what I can do.”

She shrugged. “I was desperate and thought, I don’t know—maybe you could check places and be a little less noticeable than if I were to do it.”

Ah yes, being a nobody would of course be of assistance to someone like her... Jac’s mind flew back to the bills that were due. Maybe being nobody sucked, but if she were paid for it, that would be a good thing. “I’ve never really done this sort of investigative research.” She paused when a hopeful look appeared in the younger woman’s eyes. “But I suppose I could poke around a bit and see if I can eliminate a few possibilities for you.” The not so composed heiress lunged across the table and hugged her tightly.

“Oh, thank you. I don’t care what it costs, I’ll pay all expenses, just please, please find Lanie for me before Daddy finds out.”

The younger woman’s emotions flooded into Jacinda’s mind, creating an instant tension. Trying to unwrap Amanda’s arms, she smiled in a polite way. “Just let me get a pen and paper, and I’ll get some information from you, okay?” She stifled the urge to jump to the other side of the room out of reach, and shout, ‘Don’t touch me!’ She managed to slowly walk over to her desk and dig out a notebook and pen from the clutter.

***

Forty-five minutes later, she looked down at the check sitting on top of the notes she’d taken. The photo of Elaine Azaire sat beside it. Now you do missing persons? The number on the check made her feel somewhat shell-shocked. Getting up, she walked over to the phone. Glancing back over to the check sitting a few feet away, she shook her head. The phone rang twice before her friend growled into the other end.

“You’re going to stand me up, aren’t you?”

Jacinda smirked. “With good reason.” There was a chuckle on the other end.

“The only reason good enough would be a tall sexy man.”

She grinned. “Or enough money to pay a few overdue bills. You think entirely too much about sex, lady.” Sandy shrieked into the phone.

“You’ve robbed a bank?”

Jac snarled into the phone. “So funny, ha ha. No. I have a client, and they paid me a lovely deposit.”

“A deposit? What are you researching?”

She hesitated. “More of a who than a what.”

“A person? You’re investigating a person? Jac, you don’t do people.”

“Well, apparently, I do now.”

“Who?”

She chewed the inside of her lip. “I can’t say.”

“What? What do you mean you can’t say?”

Jac brushed a pile of envelopes off her chair and sat down. “It’s kind of complicated.” She glanced at the advanced payment for what had to be the hundredth time. “And they’re more or less missing.”

“Oh. My. God. You took on a missing person case?”

“Well…” Why did she always stretch out those three words to emphasize her shock?

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t move.”

She stared at the phone listening to the dial tone. She sighed. She was about to be reminded that people with any sort of ability that was different from the rest of the world were ridiculed and made fun of, or worse, studied like a lab rat.

Having been to a doctor once in her life regarding her special ability, she was examined like she was some sort of contaminated growth. They decided that her brain chemistry was out of balance. The solution, or so she’d been told, was a prescription to restore the balance and prevent the hallucinations. That appointment ended with her telling a rather alarmed doctor that he should tell his wife he was gay and save her the heartache to come.

Hallucinations, my butt. She sneered. How could touching someone or an inanimate object bring about a hallucination that revealed emotions and events from the past?

Jacinda sighed and tried to push the feelings aside. It bothered her more than she cared to admit that she couldn’t have a normal life, a normal job. She had tried many times and was not interested in putting herself through that again. She could count all the jobs she’d lost because of her gift. Being fired for not showing up or acting weird. Usually, from seeing something she wasn’t expecting, or the results of seeing something she didn’t want. How many times had she regained consciousness with strangers standing over her, looking at her like she was a freak? Too many times.

She took a few deep breaths and brought herself under control. Glancing at the clock, she smirked. She should have timed it to see how quickly Sandy would get here. She loved Sandy, really. Sandy was her external conscience. She kept her from doing one stupid thing after another. She looked at the payment once more. What harm could discreetly looking around for someone cause?

She frowned, admitting to herself that she was lying. The last time she had thought like that, things did not turn out well. She ended up having to move. Going through life being able to feel people’s emotions and see things, that most times shouldn’t be seen, was a hard life. That hard life had left her isolated and alone. She had also learned the hard way, that it was easier to be alone and live privately in a larger city than in a small town.

The last six years had been good, mostly since she met Sandra Gains, but her first thirty years had been trying. Learning to deal with emotions that weren’t hers would cause her to be ill, or even pass out. Sandy had helped her find ways to cope, and as long as people didn’t suddenly touch her when she wasn’t expecting it, she was just fine.