A Grave Prediction (Psychic Eye Mystery) by Victoria Laurie Page A

could’ve ingratiated myself with them by simply giving them my feedback without all the verbal finger-pointing and crying foul.
    “You’re right,” I said at last. “I mean, I hate to admit it, but you really are right.”
    Candice beamed. “I never get tired of hearing that.”
    “So, what do you think I should do to repair things?” I asked her, realizing I had two weeks ahead of me that were already off to a bad start.
    “That’s the best part. You don’t have to do much of anything other than be yourself.”
    “Really?” I said. “You don’t think I should try to mend fences or apologize or anything?”
    “Nope. What’s done is done. Plus, these guys don’t need to hear an apology, which I don’t really think you owe them anyway. In fairness to you—they did start it. But that only means that it’ll be easier for you to walk in there, head held high, and get to work doing what you do. Everyone who works with you eventually comes around, Sundance. Just focus on being the amazing psychic you are, and the rest will follow.”
    “You make it sound easy,” I said.
    “It’s as easy as focusing on what’s important. The cases are the thing you came here to work on, so get to work on them.”
    “I’m also supposed to teach these agents about harnessing their own intuitive gifts to make them better investigators,” I reminded her.
    “You can work on that next week,” Candice said easily. “This week, it’s all about the caseload.”
    *   *   *
    M ost of that night, I thought about everything that Candice had said to me. No surprise, I didn’t sleep well. Her words about being my own portrait instead of somebody else’s reflection kept reverberating through my mind. I’ve been picked on and bullied a
lot
in my life, and when faced with a new, possibly hostile situation, I tend to shoot first and ask questions and bury the dead bodies later.
    What Candice had so kindly pointed out was that not every new encounter with disbelieving jerkholes had to be the O.K. Corral. I could meet fire with apathy. After a while and some practice, I might even be able to meet it with compassion, understanding, and empathy.
    So, the next morning when I again arrived at the bureau and was met by Agent Hart, I was all smiles and relaxed attitude. “Good morning, Agent Hart,” I said. “How’re you?”
    “I’m very well, Ms. Cooper, thank you for asking,” she said warmly while motioning toward the elevators. “And thank you also for your insights yesterday. I did some preliminary checking and discovered that Grecco offers some of his wealthier clients a bottle of rare wine as a thank-you for their purchase. A few of those clients he’s offered to sell even rarer vintages to.”
    There was a slight gleam in Hart’s eye when she revealed that to me, and I suddenly put together why. “Let me guess,” I said. “Grecco doesn’t have a license to sell liquor.”
    She winked at me. “Bingo.”
    “So you can obtain a warrant on that alone and dig into his records and the wine he sells.”
    “Yes,” she said, that gleam in her eye brightening even more.“I’m going to arrest him later this morning after the judge signs the warrant. The local authorities will be working jointly with us on this, and we’ll search his home and gallery thoroughly for evidence of more crimes.”
    “He’s tricky about the wine,” I said as my radar pinged. “He keeps it belowground.”
    “I’ve learned that the house he owns has a wine cellar.”
    “Those are rare in California, right?”
    “Generally,” Hart said, pushing the button for the elevator. “The hardest part may be finding the wine cellar. We have only a suggestion from the archives that the old home, once owned by Errol Flynn, has a hidden wine cellar.”
    “Ah,” I said, stepping onto the elevator when the doors opened. “Well, good luck with that.”
    Hart stood next to me and eyed me sideways. “I was thinking . . . ,” she said.
    I