One day Merry called in crying and near hysterical. Her beloved Maltese terrier, Sunny, had gone missing and she was beside herself with worry.

There were… moments… when things just clicked psychically for Eden, even without consulting her deck of cards. As Merry poured out her emotions over the phone at $1.99 a minute, a very clear and precise image of a little white ball of fluff slammed into Eden’s head with all the subtly of a Mack truck.

She knew that the dog was locked in Merry’s neighbor’s rarely used toolshed, living off birdseed and rainwater for two days, and was about to be adopted by a family of concerned raccoons.

She made up the last bit to soften the news.

Merry had thanked her profusely and Eden had gone back to her day, which included assuring a hysterical Aquarius that her Gemini boyfriend was going to pop the question soon. However, she didn’t specify exactly what the question might be.

The next day, her boss got a phone call from the chief of police, who wanted to get in touch with Eden because of the grateful ravings of his dog-obsessed wife. He wanted to have Eden on the roster of psychic consultants for future police work.

The man would not take no for an answer.

Eden’s boss at Psychic Connexions let her go later that week, explaining that his business, such as it was, would be better off without any close police scrutiny.

If she’d been able to psychically foresee that unfortunate outcome, she would have saved some money for a rainy day.

The first time she’d been called in to officially consult on a police case two weeks ago, it’d been a total bust. Even though she’d concentrated so hard it felt like her head would explode, she’d sensed absolutely nothing useful to do with the missing person. She hated disappointing people, especially when they looked at her with that too-familiar, hard-edged, cynical glare. Most people thought psychics, even mild ones like her, were major frauds, and failing to prove them wrong was even more annoying.