To Tell a Tale (Season One)

Airianna watched the car pull into the drive from her bedroom window. What was he doing here? Why did he come? She watched the two detectives climb out of the car and head to the porch. She pulled back from the window when she saw him turn toward her. Did he know she was here, watching him?

“Airianna Marie Williams!”

The lights in her room flickered; Airianna closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Her father wasn’t happy. He only flashed her bedroom lights when he was upset with her and wanted her downstairs that instant…

“Coming!” she called out as she opened her bedroom door.

Airianna took a calming breath and headed down the stairs.

Nash watched the girl’s father as he paced the living room. When he’d asked to speak to Airianna, the man had hollered for the girl, then flipped a switch in the hall. When Nash had heard the girl’s voice, he’d wondered if she’d heard her father. If she wasn’t as deaf as she portrayed to be.

When he and Smitty stepped out of their vehicle, Nash felt a pull to look up at the window looking down on them. He thought he’d seen her move away from the window—but wasn’t sure.

When Airianna stepped into the living room, he heard his partner’s intake of breath and knew he was going to have to keep the idiot from falling for the girl.

“Airianna, the detectives are here to see you,” Mr. Williams said as he turned to his daughter so she could read his lips.

Airianna looked from her father to the two detectives in their living room. ‘Why were they here?’

“Hi,” she whispered, looking straight at the detective who had caught her last night.

If she was honest with herself, she’d hoped she would see him again.

“Hi,” the detective said, giving her a small smile.

The other detective cleared his throat, making his partner stand up straighter and look away from her.

“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” the other detective said, looking at Airianna. “But our captain….”

“You can stop right there,” Arianna’s father growled. “I have told your captain more than once that my daughter is NOT a toy….”

“Of course not.” Nash looked at the girl’s father. “We never thought she was. He is offering to pay her for her help. That is—if she’s for real….” He instantly regretted his words. Apparently, Airianna can read lips even when you’re not directly facing her.

“You think what I did for you last night wasn’t real?” she demanded, pointing at him.

Nash turned to her, “no, not at all….”

“But I’m not real,” she sneered.

Nash closed his eyes. He has never believed in psychics or seers. Or whatever she is. She could have planned the whole thing last night to make herself look good. But did he really see her capable of killing someone? Even someone as ruthless and evil as the man who was about to shoot him and his partner?

She did shoot someone at the age of seven.

‘But that was to protect her dying mother.’

“I can assure you,” Airianna growled. “My visions are real.”

“I believe you,” Smitty said, practically panting over the girl.

She smiled at him, then glared at Nash. “Shall I show you what I saw?”

She motioned for them to follow her. Nash looked at her father.

With a grunt, Jeremy Williams motioned for the two detectives to follow his daughter. He may not like the police getting involved with his family, but he also wasn’t going to let them get away with insulting his daughter. Especially when she went through all the trouble of protecting their sorry asses.

Airianna grumbled to herself as she led the two detectives down the hall to her art room. Her father had built an add-on for her special room. By age fifteen, drawings and paintings were scattered across the house. Now, they’re all in the closet of her art room.

‘Real indeed.’

“This is my art room,” she said as she opened the door and let the two detectives in.

Nash looked around the paint-splattered room. There was a painting leaning against the wall, and he felt himself drawn to it. It was of the crate which had narrowly missed smashing him and his partner. He lifted it and looked closer. When he recognized his own dead eyes in the body of the man pinned under the crate, he dropped the painting.

“Hey, be careful with that,” the girl growled as she yanked the painting away from him and looked it over.

“Holy fuck, is that Nash under that thing?”

Airianna looked at the other detective. “Is that his name?”

He looked from her to his partner and back to her, then laughed. “You mean he never told you his name?”

Airianna shook her head and looked back at the painting. She never planned to contact him about one of her visions, so she didn’t care he hadn’t given her his name. What was the use? Her father wouldn’t have allowed it, even if fate wanted them to work together. Her father didn’t trust the police with her gift.

He may have told her to follow her soul regarding the detective, but he didn’t mean by showing him her gift. He meant… What did he mean?

“So, can you read minds?” the other detective asked.

Airianna looked at him, a frown deepening the lines on her face.

“I’m not a psychic; I’m a seer.”

The man raised his hands and backed away, a grin on his handsome face.

Though she found him handsome, he wasn’t as attractive as Nash. Nash, what an interesting name. She looked at Nash and frowned. He still had a haunted look on his face.

“Is… is that what you saw? Why you came to help us?” Nash asked, pointing to her painting.

Airianna looked at the painting and nodded. She’d read the question in his eyes as much as his lips.

“It is one of the versions of what was going to happen to you and your partner….”

“One of the versions?” the partner squealed.

Airianna heard the squeal in his voice but didn’t hear his words. She looked up at him; his face was ghost white.

He looked at her and cleared his throat. “One of them?” he asked, a little calmer, forming his words so she could read his lips.

She nodded, “yes.” Airianna moved to her closet, placed the painting inside, and pulled out her other prediction.

She turned to them and held the painting for them to take it.

Numbly, Nash took the painting from Airianna’s hands and stared at it. It was a detailed painting of him and Smitty on the floor, blood leaking from their ears.

“Shit,” Smitty whispered. “That’s me.” He pointed to the detailed version of himself on the canvas before them.

“The noise was going to do damage even with the plugs,” Nash whispered when he saw the plug still in his left ear, blood dripping around it.

“Man, she seriously saved our lives,” Smitty said, looking up at the girl watching them. “I think she’s legit.”

Nash scoffed, “just because she painted these scenes doesn’t mean it’s real. She could have done it last night after she got home.”

“I don’t know, man. Feel the paint; it’s pretty dry. Like she did these months ago, not hours.”

Nash touched the paint and frowned. His partner was right; the paint was too dry to have been painted last night. But still, he was more of a see-it-to-believe-it… But isn’t he seeing it now?

“I’m Smitty, by the way!”

Nash rolled his eyes at his partner, who was shaking the girl’s hand. What was the harm in looking at her paintings? Not like her father will allow her to work for the police, right?

~🔮~

The detectives stayed for an hour, looking at the different paintings: “predictions.” If the girl was for real, she’d seen a lot of darkness in her short life.

“I will tell the captain you said no,” Nash said as he left the house, nodding to Mr. Williams.

“Thanks, I appreciate your understanding,” Mr. Williams said, nodding to the young detective.

“Wait!” Airianna called out as she rushed from the hall leading to her art room. She ran to the two detectives and handed Nash a piece of paper. “Can you check on this girl for me, please?”

Nash looked at the name on the paper, then up at the girl before him. Did he believe her enough to look into something that may never have happened?

“Please,” she pleaded.

Nash sighed and nodded his head. Who was he to turn down the girl who saved his life?

“Thank you.” She smiled as she backed away from him.

Mr. Williams wrapped his arms around his daughter’s shoulders and watched Nash and Smitty as they headed out the door.

“What did she give you?” Smitty asked, looking at the paper in Nash’s hand.

“A name and address,” Nash answered, looking at his partner.

“Cool, let’s check it out.” Smitty grinned as he got into their cruiser.

Nash shrugged. What was the harm, right?

~🔮~

“What did you give the detectives?”

Airianna looked up at her father when she felt his chest vibrate. She knows he’d spoken. When she was looking at him, he asked again.

“The name and address of the girl I had the vision of last week.”

Her father shook his head, “I told you….”

Airianna moved out of her father’s embrace. “I know what you have said about the police, Papa. But that girl needs them, and you’re confusing me too much.”

“How am I confusing you?” he asked, moving his lips so she could understand his every word.

Airianna pulled the piece of paper her father had given her last night out of her pocket and handed it to him.

“You either want me to follow my soul, or you don’t.” She turned and headed into the kitchen.

Jeremy Williams sighed as he read the paper he’d given his daughter the night before. Yes, he wanted her to follow her soul, to see where fate was leading her. But with the man, not the detective behind the man.

But maybe she needed to convince the detective before she could convince the man.

~🔮~

“Is this the correct address?” Smitty whispered as he and Nash made their way to the apartment number on the paper.

“If not, then we apologize and head back to the station. We have an unhappy captain to talk to.”

Smitty nodded and raised his hand to knock on the door. A scream on the other side of the door had him pausing. They looked at each other, then at the door. Another scream came from inside, and Nash broke down the door.

The scene inside the apartment had both men stunned for a moment. They snapped out of it when the man turned away and headed for the window.

“I’ve got the perp; you get the girl,” Nash said, pointing to the girl on the floor, holding her top together over her breasts.

Smitty nodded and moved to the frightened girl.

“It’s okay; I’m Detective Smitt. We’re here to help you,” he whispered to her.

The girl broke down and fell against the detective.

Nash jumped out the window onto the fire escape and spotted the perp as he jumped to the ground. With a snarl, he threw himself over the rail and landed on the jackass.

“What? You only fight women?” Nash growled in the man’s ear as he pulled his hands behind his back. “Guess what, punk. This is your last fight.” He placed his cuffs on the man’s wrist as he read him his rights.

“Did you get him?” Smitty asked from the window above.

Nash chuckled as he looked up at his partner. “Did you have any doubts?”

Smitty grinned, “not at all, Partner. Not at all.”

Nash looked at the girl standing beside Smitty, holding onto him for dear life as she looked down at Nash and the perp beneath his knee. If not for Airianna Williams, that girl would have been raped and possibly worse. He looked down at the man beneath him and snarled as he pushed his knee into the perp’s back. The man bellowed in pain, making Nash feel slightly better.

Airianna Williams has a lot of questions to answer.