She’d expected someone older. She didn’t know why. Maybe because to her a police officer was an authority figure, and authority figures were supposed to be older.

“You Cleo Tyler?” the sloppy one asked in an authoritative way that immediately set Cleo on edge, that immediately had her wanting to respond with something childish, like What’s it to you? Instead, she said, “Yes.”

“I’m Daniel Sinclair.”

She read him so easily. A skeptic. She didn’t mind skeptics. In fact, she was one. She’d spent the last several years trying to prove to herself that psychic phenomena didn’t exist.

She could see that Daniel Sinclair had come prepared to dislike her, but the sight of a blind person had sent him into a tailspin. Now he felt guilty for disliking someone who was handicapped, but he still thought she was out to take the town of Egypt, Missouri, for a ride.

Which could be the case. But it wasn’t her fault that they’d come begging for help. It wasn’t as though she was in the business. She’d been working in a coffee shop, for God’s sake. Lately she’d toyed with the idea of going back to school, but when the Egypt police chief called for the third time, Cleo found herself considering their request. Her life had fallen into a rut. And when she was told she’d get paid whether she found the master key or not, well, it was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

The man in front of her was looking at her as if he knew her inside and out. What arrogance. He knew nothing about her. And, at that moment, she decided she didn’t want to know anything about him. Let him wallow in his smug narrow-mindedness.

“You don’t look like a policeman,” she stated, implying that people weren’t always what they seemed. Her comment also let him in on her harmless deception.

At first his expression was one of surprise. That was instantly replaced by one of self-satisfaction. He’d expected deception from her. “You’re not blind.”