Messenger Between Worlds Read online

  “How long have you been gone?” I asked, grabbing the notepad and pen that sat on my nightstand.

  She sighed and shook her head. “I’m not even sure. I don’t think it’s been long.”

  I looked hard at her to see her aura. It was white with a dull gray shadow, which showed me that she had made it through the light to the Other Side, but still had unresolved issues. And boy did she have unresolved issues.

  “Can you tell me what happened to you … uh, what is your name?”

  “Amber Rose,” she said, beginning to cry. “Really just Amber, but my mom would call me Amber Rose—I even got a tattoo of a rose on my hip.” She pulled her pants slightly down so that I could see the image on her hip.

  “What happened?”

  “My boyfriend murdered me and buried my body.”

  She looked all of sixteen years old with a hardness that only the streets could give.

  “I don’t mean to be insensitive, Amber, but in order to help you, I need more information than that.”

  In what was probably only a half hour, she described the location and kept saying over and over that it was where she and her boyfriend would go all the time. It was not in Michigan, but she had family in Michigan.

  After mulling over what I was going to do with the information, I decided to try something I never did. I got up in the morning and typed into the search engine on the computer, “Amber. Missing.” This instantly produced her name and a website noting that she was in fact missing and her family only lived a hop and a skip from me.

  I gasped, looking at her picture on the screen, at the uncanny resemblance, only my visitor had more brown in her hair. (Maybe there isn’t hair dye on the Other Side?) I plugged in the information for Crime Stoppers and sent off an email similar to, “I swear I am perfectly sane, but I am a spirit medium and would like to assist the family with Amber’s case. Free of charge.” And just hours after sending the email, Amber’s mother called to inform me that her cousin was now handling the case because she was extremely ill. I would love to say that the weekend resulted in a solved crime, but it took well over a year.

  Amber had told me was that she was in (or near) a metro park that had a cemetery in it, and that she was near water, but not in the water.

  I immediately bonded with Amber’s cousin, Paula. She had a heart of gold and was the glue that held her family together, even though she had an array of health concerns.

  Amber’s family tried to get the detectives to listen to the information I was receiving, but they would have nothing of it, so her family decided to take matters into their own hands and asked me to come and search the location. Our team consisted of Amber’s cousin, sister, father, another psychic medium, Chuck, and me. With several parks in the area, we choose the one that was most desolate.

  It wasn’t as if we were carrying shovels as we hiked the park—instead I tried to call on Amber to get more information as to where she was buried—but as we hiked further into the park, we were stopped by park officials and questioned. We admitted that we weren’t just on a nature walk—we were looking for a dead body. Everybody pointed at me to explain why.

  Skeptical, but curious, the deputy director and a park ranger asked me to sit on a picnic bench and write out everything I knew and draw a map. After about fifteen minutes, I handed over the information that Amber had given me.

  “Are you sure that you’ve never been here before?”

  “This is my first time,” I answered, getting nervous.

  “All right, let’s take a walk. But only you. Nobody else.”

  I agreed, although now I wonder what I was thinking. The ranger was none too thrilled with the idea of a medium and he made it known throughout most of the walk.

  The director received a phone call and had to walk up a hill to get better reception, leaving me alone with the ranger with attitude. A group of three small boys walked toward us, one cupping his hand.

  “What do you have there?” the ranger asked the oldest boy, who looked to be about eight.

  “A frog,” he replied and proudly unfolded his hand to reveal his treasure.

  “Be careful with that.”

  “I will, sir,” the boy replied, carefully holding the frog.

  The boys walked passed us and the ranger and I held a gaze. Electricity burned and we both realized that we were deep within the woods where there were three young boys, yet no adults. Both of us swung around to look, only to see the boys dissipate into thin air.

  “Was that a … ?”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Must’ve been.”

  “I believe you,” he said, shaking his head. “Yup, I believe you.”

  If only I could convince every skeptic in that way.

  We later discovered that those three boys had drowned in the nearby river years ago, as they searched for frogs.

  The search plodded on and was now well over the two-hour mark. As we walked, they asked me questions about the case, along with others in their area. I abruptly stopped.

  “What do you see?”

  “The trees,” I pointed. “The trees where Amber is aren’t this dark in color. They are a lighter pine.”

  They looked at one another knowingly. “Anything else?”

  “I know this is going to sound weird, but does this park have a cemetery?”

  “No, but there is one that does, and it just so happens to be behind the home of the boyfriend’s father.”

  It didn’t take a psychic to put the rest of the puzzle together after that. We stood there downloading the information that I shared, trying to figure out our next move.

  The other message Amber gave me was concrete, but nobody could make head or tail on what that clue meant.

  We decided to set a later date to search the other park with K-9s in tow.

  It would be several months before we could make another visit, and this time it was only Chuck, Paula, and me. We once again made the three-hour trek back to search.

  Pulling up to the park, I had shivers. I knew we were where she was. Asking for her guidance, we began. As we rounded the curve to where the small cemetery sat, I began to cry. I nodded to continue on. It was well over ninety degrees and I had worn shorts and a tank top, which was really not hiking wear. By the end of the search, I was covered in burrs and squealing from the jumping spiders and the snakes that seemed to chase us. We finally got to a destination that felt right, and I stuck a stick in the ground.

  “She’s right around here. Closer to that way, by the light pine trees and the marshy area.” I pointed. I had felt water around her, but I never felt that she was in the water. “But that is private property, right?”

  The rangers nodded. “By the way, that’s the boyfriend’s father’s home.” The lead ranger pointed.

  The K-9s were let loose and they indeed responded by sitting near the spot I marked.

  “Can we get a warrant, or dig?”

  “We wait.”

  “Wait? Wait for what?”

  I was met with a shrug, and we loaded the car up to leave. The search party exchanged hugs and well wishes, but I was left feeling depleted. All that, and we just had to leave?!

  Chuck and I made our way to the car when I was suddenly accosted by the media.

  “Psychic says she knows where Amber is,” the lead story on the five o’clock local news aired, playing a clip of me wishing the family closure and rushing away.

  The last thing I wanted was media attention. Amber’s killer was on the loose, and I was still getting used to my newfound title of medium.

  That night we stayed in a shady-looking hotel. I was awake the entire night hearing Amber’s cries and feeling as if I were being watched, not by the spirit world, but by evil itself. Headlights shone in our room and I jumped.

  “We have to go home, Chuck,” I begged. “I think he know
s we’re here! We should leave now!” But it was well after midnight, and after eight hours of hiking through miles of woodland, the last thing Chuck wanted to do was pack up and hit the road in the middle of the night.

  He assured me that we were safe and reminded me that I had a meeting with a private investigator in the morning regarding another missing persons case in Columbus.

  I slept fully dressed, holding my cell phone close in case I needed to dial 911, and clung to Chuck.

  Leaving the area was once again heartbreaking. I wasn’t concerned with breaking open the case or catching the killer; my goal was finding Amber and putting her to rest. But, once again, we were leaving without doing that.

  Three months later, four years after Amber’s death, Amber’s mom passed away. Between her various illnesses and her broken heart, her body just couldn’t hold up. Amber’s father lost himself in grief and her sister felt orphaned. A couple days after Christmas day in 2007, not long after Amber’s mom’s passing, I received the call that Amber’s boyfriend, Rickie, went on a killing spree that included strangling his mother and beating her boyfriend to death with a shovel. Rickie was missing, and anybody associated with the case had to be on the lookout as there had been more mysterious missing people, suicides, and murders associated with the case. We were all on edge. I was petrified to leave my house until I heard word that he was caught. Just a few days later, I received the call that they found him, at the very same hotel that we had stayed at just a few months ago. And a few days afterwards, the deputy director called to tell me that they found Amber’s remains, just steps away from where I had placed the stick marking her grave. Three years after I took on the case, Amber’s murderer had his day in court, where prosecutors released the information that after she was killed, she was transferred several times and finally buried with concrete poured atop to prevent any cadaver dogs from finding her.

  Amber is now at peace with her mother, and justice has been served. I, however, am saddened at how many people had to lose their lives at the hands of a handsome monster. If detectives had pressured her boyfriend some more, maybe his mom and her boyfriend would still be alive, along with the string of others who perished mysteriously.

  [contents]

  twenty-three

  Confessions

  As I was running around playing Nancy Drew, my mom was dying and I couldn’t do anything about it. She had survived the first year after the heart attack, but on January 3, the day I returned back to work after Christmas vacation, she had another heart attack and was in bad shape. The decision loomed for our family. Do we sign off on her having heart surgery and more than likely dying, or not have the surgery and almost certainly dying? We decided to do whatever we could and pray for a miracle.

  That Christmas I had splurged and bought her a cashmere sweater. For years on end she talked about wanting a cashmere sweater. I sobbed thinking about the memories that still hadn’t been made—memories that mattered. I didn’t want to lose her.

  It was a brisk January morning when I was called at work and drove to the hospital to sit next to my mom’s bedside. I knew that I had to come clean with her.

  “Mom, I know how much you hated when I was a little girl that I saw spirits and ghosts, but I’m doing that as a career now. I work with the police and I’m doing readings.”

  We spent over an hour talking about it. She made me feel accepted for the first time in my life. She asked me to give her details of the cases, and gratefully I did. Her blind eyes shone bright with the fear of the next day’s surgery.

  “Kristy, if you’re psychic, you also know if I am going to make it, right?”

  “Mom, you’re going to be just fine,” I said, kissing her gently on her cheek, choking back the lie.

  The rest of the morning, we tried to keep things light and rambled about the kids and their activities, weather reports, and I kept her laughing with anecdotes about my cat Ozzy and dog Guinness. I spared her any conversations on my mounting bills or the boss who was giving me problems for taking so much time off. I merely held her hand in mine and talked like there wasn’t a worry in the world. Every so often a nurse would come in to explain details of the next day’s open-heart surgery or to check on her vitals. We laughed and talked about everything and anything. She cried her heart out when I went home, and I cried all the way to the car because I knew that this would be our last real time together.

  Mom and I were close, but we had a love/hate relationship. Her stubbornness and moodiness drove me crazy. My stubbornness and moodiness drove her crazy. We agreed to disagree in order to get along, but even through the worst arguments, we always made up.

  I kept a busy life, so even though we lived but miles away from one another, I wasn’t always able to go over to her house every week. However, no matter what, I called her on my way home from work every day. Most of the time I kept my worries private, as my mom fed off of them and worried enough for the both of us. She was an empath in her own right, but when I needed a hug, she was there to give me one.

  The morning of the surgery, I was a nervous wreck and I knew that my mom was just as nervous. Walking down the hallway, I heard a familiar voice in my mom’s room. “The police? She’s lying.” I heard my brother laugh. “She always did have an imagination.” I never heard my mom’s response. I walked into the room, my cheeks flaming with what I suppose could only be labeled humiliation. The dreaded curse again. The acceptance I felt from the day before was quickly replaced with loneliness.

  In the early morning of January 30, 2006, I received a phone call urging me to get over to the hospital. I had just pulled into work, but instead of waiting for the elevator, I ran up the three flights of stairs to let my boss know that I was there, but had to leave. I didn’t give any explanation; I just raced back down the stairs, to the car. I couldn’t cry, something not typical for me. On my way to the hospital I called Chuck, who said he’d meet me there. As I drove the twenty or so miles, I sensed my mom sitting in the passenger seat next to me and I asked for a sign.

  The ride to the hospital was numbing. Every song on the radio was cheerful and happy. I didn’t want to hear cheerful and happy. I was determined to hurt, so I switched it over to the country station, and there was my sign. Brooks and Dunn were singing a song called “I Believe.” I knew that mom had crossed, and she was telling me she was fine.

  As I rode the elevator up to mom’s room, I could feel her next to me telling me not to cry. She never liked to see me crying. Dad was by mom’s side, holding her hand. My brother stood over her body, sobbing. I came up to her and gave her a kiss when my dad told me that she had passed. I already knew. I just nodded and told her that I loved her and sat down on the floor. Dad looked at me and told me to choose a funeral home. I knew then that I had to be the one to hold it all together and take control.

  At the age of sixty-eight, Sally Lou Schiller gave up her fight. Now, even though she cannot show me how to make her famous chicken noodle soup, I know for sure that she looks at us from above and knows what her grandchildren look like, knows what I look like, and can finally read my books.

  Planning the funeral was a welcome distraction, yet each afternoon, I reached for the phone to call my mom and then remembered.

  One of the things she used to tell us was that she hated gladiolas and referred to them as a funeral flower. “Don’t let those yucky flowers be at my funeral,” she would say. So my sister and I carefully chose every single flower for her arrangement. She loved wildflowers, so we themed her arrangements in pinks, blues, and purples. Dad asked me to choose her outfit. Knowing how much she loved to be comfortable—“Kristy, just dress me in my nightgown in my casket,” she would tell me—I chose a comfortable pink sweater and a black velvet skirt, plus fuzzy pink socks. She looked beautiful and comfortable. I didn’t have the heart to bury her in the cashmere sweater that still had tags attached and was sitting in her bedroom dresser.

 
The day before the funeral was her visitation. It was a long day of meeting friends and family. She used to say that nobody would ever attend her funeral, but it was packed full. I only wish she had the same reception when she was alive. Her depression and her blindness had made her into a social hermit, and many people, relatives and friends alike, had abandoned her. At least that is how she felt. At the end of the evening, my entire office came to show their support. It choked me up with gratitude.

  My boss offered his sympathy, and my son, who was nine years old, looked up at him and brazenly asked if he was going to fire me.

  “Why would you say that?” my boss said, appalled.

  Work gave me an awful time for taking time off to be with my mom—I had been written up, and I was even told that they called the hospital to make sure I was telling the truth. I didn’t believe that I had even said anything out loud, but Connor had obviously picked up on the stress.

  “Now do you believe her?” Connor asked my boss, pointing to his dead grandmother.

  My boss turned red and bent down to Connor to reassure him that my job was safe.

  Regardless if my job was safe or not, I wasn’t happy. Years back I’d thought it was my dream job, but all of the years of resentment had taken its toll.

  The funeral was early the next morning. I looked through the flowers and cards and then stopped in my tracks. One of the arrangements was a bouquet of gladiolas. I pointed it out to my dad, who told me that we couldn’t remove it as the person who gave it was going to be there, and so at the feet of my mom’s casket sat the dreaded funeral flowers.

  The service began and I could see the spirit of my mom standing next to the shell of her body. She looked brilliantly happy and she waved to me. I blew her a kiss and broke down in tears. Then smack dab in the middle of the message, the arrangement of gladiola blooms fell over. Laughter erupted from those who knew that mom had to have her way.