The Third Eye by Lois Duncan

puppies. I don’t like dogs, period. Any shape or any size.”
    “Come here, Coco.” The woman stooped and gathered up the leaping animal. “I’ll go put him in the toolshed, okay?”
    “That’ll be great. Just make sure the door’s shut tight.”
    They sat in silence while Mrs. Sanchez carried the dog, still yapping, around the corner of the house. When she returned a few moments later with her arms empty, Officer Wilson opened the door and got out of the car.
    “There’s nothing new to report,” he said apologetically. “I’m off duty today and not here on official business. I thought,though, it might be a good thing for you to talk to this friend of mine, Karen.”
    “I don’t need more talking,” the woman said. “What I need is my baby back. For a week now, she’s been gone! For a week now, she’s been off somewhere with that
maldito
, crying for her mama, wanting to sleep at night in her own room. God knows what kind of place he has her in! You’re the police! Why don’t you find her?”
    “These things take time,” Officer Wilson said. “It’s tough tracking down somebody who has no ties. At least you know that it is Carla’s father. He’s not going to do anything that’s going to hurt her.”
    “Carla needs to be home,” the woman said emphatically. “She needs to be home with her mama. She needs to be in school.”
    “We
are
going to find her, Mrs. Sanchez. Believe me, we’re doing the best we can.” He went around the car to the passenger’s side and opened the door for Karen. “This is Karen Connors. She’s going to help us.”
    “Help, how?” challenged Mrs. Sanchez, regarding Karen suspiciously. “She’s not a policewoman. She’s just a girl.”
    “Karen finds children,” said Officer Wilson. “Last week she found a boy who was missing. His parents were just as worried about him as you are about Carla. Karen closed her eyes and thought about him, and she was able to tell us where he was.”
    Mrs. Sanchez’s expression altered slightly. Her dark eyesflickered with a sudden glint of something that could have been either hope or fear.
    “
Una bruja
?” she questioned softly.
    “No, not a witch, a ‘guesser.’ A special kind of guesser.”
    “You guess right?” Mrs. Sanchez asked Karen. “You can guess where Carla is, and she will be there?”
    “I can’t make any promises,” Karen said. “You can’t count on anything. I knew the missing boy, but I don’t know Carla. I don’t even know what she looks like.”
    “Her mother has a photograph,” Officer Wilson said.
    “It’s her school picture,” Mrs. Sanchez said. “She looks so beautiful. Come inside, and I show you.”
    The inside of the Sanchez home proved to be as unassuming as its mud-brick exterior. The front room was sparsely furnished, containing only a sagging, overstuffed sofa, two worn chairs, and a large television set. The walls were plastered and painted white, and they were hung with an assortment of pictures depicting religious subject matter.
    The stars of the display seemed to be Jesus blessing the children and the Virgin Mother in various attitudes of prayer.
    On top of the TV, in a metallic dollar-store frame, there stood an eight-by-ten enlargement of a solemn-faced girl of grammar school age. Her eyes were dark and luminous, and her thick black hair fell almost to her waist. She was as pretty as her mother had indicated. She also looked shy and sweet and vulnerable. She did, indeed, appear to be a child who should be “home with her mama.”
    “It’s her last school picture,” Mrs. Sanchez said. “This time she didn’t blink. Last year when they took the picture her eyes were closed.”
    “This picture is lovely,” said Karen.
    “She’s pretty, yes?”
    “She’s beautiful.”
    “Could Karen see Carla’s room?” asked Officer Wilson. “If she could spend some time around Carla’s things, she might be able to… well, to ‘guess’ a little better.”
    “The best