Read In Search of the Dove for Free Online Page A

in heretofore unimagined signals. She still remembered the day she’d chanced on a frightening channel that had riveted her attention. She’d wanted to turn it off, but the horrible images wouldn’t be banished. The nightmare hadn’t ended until one person was dead and the whole parish had turned against her, as if it had been her fault.
    She’d always sensed that if she came back to live in New Orleans, her psychic ability would push its way out of the spongy loam of her mind like a stubborn weed that had been chopped off but refused to die. That’s why she’d stayed away.
    But now with Aubrey in such a precarious condition, the talent that had been her undoing might be the only way to find out what had happened to him.
    Suddenly the scene two days ago under the live oak tree at the university flooded back into her mind. She remembered the man she’d been talking to, the one with the corded muscles and hard-edged face who’d evoked such a strong response from her. Something had happened with him that had never happened before, even at the height of her fascination with psychic phenomena. For just a moment she’d felt her mind merge with his.
    Jessica shivered. She didn’t even know his name. Yet for a few seconds she’d picked up a confusing image of a white dove from him.
    The vision had taken her completely by surprise. Because she’d been alarmed, she’d tried to deny what had happened and fled. Now she could look at the experience more calmly and understand that the apprehension was simply a holdover from her past. What had happened at sixteen had been devastating. But she’d come through it a stronger person. She was no longer a frightened girl. She was a woman with the maturity to control the hidden forces that had once controlled her. And perhaps with maturity had come powers she hadn’t even dreamed of before.
    She sat for a long time with her head cupped in her hands, weighing the risks versus the benefits and wondering if she were kidding herself. But in the end, there was no alternative. She had to explore the old abilities that she’d tried to deny for so long if she had any hope of helping her brother. The choice made, she felt a new sense of potency seeping into her body. It was as if she were absorbing energy from some hidden source.
    The mood swing was almost giddy. Suddenly she felt her heart race with excitement. She’d been hitting dead ends for days. Now she could do something.
    Watch it, she told herself. Don’t let this run away with you. Yet she knew she was experiencing a heightened state of psychic awareness in which almost anything could happen.
    With a fresh sense of purpose, she squared her shoulders and looked around her brother’s apartment. The place to start was where she’d had success before. One thing she’d been able to do all those years ago was get impressions of people and places from holding their possessions. She’d been straightening and cleaning for days and hadn’t even felt a twinge of insight into which things of Aubrey’s might help her. But her mind had been numb with shock and pain, and she hadn’t let herself open to any psychic possibilities.
    Perhaps the thing to do was start with something that wouldn’t be too threatening. Standing up, she crossed to the tall pine bookcase pushed against one wall and looked at the contents. Along with the hardback texts was an assortment of paperback novels. Aubrey’s taste ran to science fiction, she noticed, stroking her hand along the spines. One in particular drew her attention and she pulled the volume from the shelf. It was an old Robert Heinlein novel called The Puppet Masters.
    Holding it in her hand, Jessica closed her eyes and tried to make her mind blank. At first, nothing happened, and she realized that the vulnerable part of her was secretly relieved. Perhaps that was the reason she didn’t allow herself to give up. Her fingers pressed into the cover of the book. Her heart began to beat