1-800-Psychic Hotline

Chapter Two

Lydia poured herself and her cousin, Andros, a cup of coffee. The machine gurgled and sputtered helplessly. She sighed. The warranty was either about to expire or had been for the last year just when the stupid thing looked like it would crap out any minute now. She fixed his coffee the way he liked it, full of diabetes-inducing sugar and creamer. As for her, she preferred hers black.

She walked back to her living room where she found Andros scratching behind Casanova's fluffy ears while the other cats simply couldn't give a damn about his presence. He sat up on the couch with his other hand holding a packet of ice to his skull where she hit him with her bat. Lydia put the coffee on the table before she seated herself down next to him. She rubbed her eyes.

"I can't keep doing this, Andros. I can't keep being your sanctuary house every time you and Barbara have a fight. Either go to marriage counseling or get a divorce. I don't care which. Just get it done."

"She's never been like this before. You know she was all sweet and everything before…"

"You got her pregnant?" Lydia finished for him.

Andros sighed. He stopped scratching Casanova's ears and reached for the coffee. Taking a sip like it was a tall glass of booze, he took a big gulp. Lydia watched him in astonishment. Geez, he didn't even let it cool off a little. She thought.

"She told me she was on the pill."

"And was she?"

"Yes, but you know…sometimes those things aren't always perfect. She must have missed a day. You know?"

"And that is why you're in this mess. And that's why I have to baby-sit you every time you two go at. I've got a life too, you know!"

Andros looked around the living room. She wished he hadn't done that. Very few pictures on the wall. No sign of a spouse or partner to prove that she lived with a family or had a relationship of any kind. The biggest object in the room was her television, the most expensive thing she owned and it took her months to save up for it. She had a collection of horror and occult movies but no one to watch them with. A pile of cat toys, a litter box in the corner, and a scratching post were obvious signs of a woman who spent more time thinking about her pets than boyfriends.

Sure, at times she felt rather pathetic about her living situation in that she shared a fairly large brownstone (for a New York City residence, hers seemed pretty big by comparison to some smaller apartments) with only three cats. But most often, Lydia decided she didn't care what people thought about it. She was…happy.

I think.

Andros and the family, on both sides mind you, tended to disparage the single woman lifestyle. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, admittedly, had a certain amount of accuracy. Every so often, her Greek mother's family stopped by and asked if there would ever be a man in the picture. Lydia was snippy at first, however as time wore on she learned to bear with it. Sometimes an annoying occurrence just stops getting on your nerves, and Lydia found this to be true after several months of this mild torture. A Greek-Catholic family tended to be big, and loud, and all four of her nosey aunts decided to take it upon themselves to be her matchmaker. One can see the level of their success.

"A life, huh?" He gave her a judging look.

"Andros…" Lydia sighed, rolling her eyes.

"I mean, maybe it would make sense if you were a lesbian…"

"I'm not a lesbian."

"That's not what Barbara thinks."

"She's the reason why you're here invading my space again! Don't you dare bring her into this, Andros!"

"Sorry. Sorry. Okay. You're not lesbian." He took another long swig of his coffee. Lydia watched him swirl the contents around like a wine taster for no apparent reason.

"I thought you were another burglar. Why didn't you text me before you walked over here? I wouldn't have hit you with the bat."

"Yeah," he threw the ice pack unto the coffee table with a heavy thud. Andros winced as he gently rubbed his sore head. "Why did you have to hit me so hard?"

"Because it was five in the morning and you scared the s**t out of me! You don't even want to know the kind of night I've had!" Lydia waited long enough. She grabbed her own coffee and took a few sips from her mug. She kind of enjoyed the mild burning sensation on her tongue, though she realized that she used caffeinated instead of decaffeinated coffee. Great, now she would never be able to go back to sleep. At this rate, she might as well stay up and read a book or something. She looked out towards the windows in her living room that faced the streets. Pale yellow streaks were starting to creep through the curtains. She glanced at the DVD player's clock. It read almost seven-thirty.

"Well, I hope you're happy. Now, I'm never going back to bed." She grumbled.

"What made you so grumpy today?" Andros drank the rest of his coffee and set the mug aside.

"Stuff at work," Lydia answered as she tried to keep her tone simple. There's no way he would believe her.

"Boss giving you some unwanted attention? Cuz I might know a guy who's a lawyer," he offered.

Lydia shook her head. She remembered Nicholas Papadopoulos' phone call, followed by the creepy dude she spotted in the parking garage when he started to follow her car. Those unnatural gold eyes with the cat's split pupil bisecting them…Lydia shuddered, which didn't help her situation with Andros. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him grow cross and leaned towards her.

"If he's done something to you, you know damn well that it's not your fault. Just because he's your boss, doesn't mean he gets to take advantage of you. You can sue the fucker's pants off if he dares to touch you inappropriately!" Andros' hands were shaking in his lap. His reasons for taking it personal were…well, let's say that's a story for another time.

"I know!" Lydia snapped. She calmed down and cleared her throat. "I know," she said in a softer voice. "I know. Trust me when I say it's not my boss who I'm worried about. I'm just not sure how much I should say to you."

"What is it? You know as long as it's short of a physical threat or s****l harassment, I won't tell anybody. You can tell me. You let me hang here when Barbara needs to chill. The least I can do is be a shoulder to cry on or be there when you need a pair of good ears to listen to you."

She sucked in her breath. Sighing heavily, Lydia answered. "There was this weird phone call earlier."

"What kind of call?"

"A weird one."

"You're going to have be more specific," Andros mumbled.

Lydia groaned. She sank her head back into the back of her couch. No doubt Andros had plans to blab to the entire family, including her father. Following that, demands that she quit her job and find a safer one would come through like crowds to see the pope at the Vatican. She didn't look forward to that.

"Some weird guy who thought I was actually psychic."

"But you work at a psychic hotline?" Andros' brows furrowed.

"You don't think I actually believe in that stuff, do you? It's all psychological mumbo-jumbo. None of its real, but the dude insisted. I hung up on him, and then he called me back. The next time, luckily, he hung up on me. I think it's safe to say he won't be calling again." I hope.

"Are you sure?" Andros gave her this look. The same look usually threatened to tell every one of their relatives within spitting distance what sort of trouble she had gotten herself into.

Without hesitation, Lydia lied and didn't even skip a beat. "Yes, Big Brother," she bemoaned. "Everything is fine. Besides, if he calls again, I can get Aaron to block the call. It's not that big of a deal. It's not like he called my cell or my house phone. Stop giving that look already!"

"If you insist," he conceded. "Yo, where's your remote. I wanna see what's on the news."

The device sat next to her foot. Pouting, Lydia reached over in his stead and handed it to him without a word of complaint, though he indefinitely deserved it.

"Thanks." Andros flicked the button. He pressed for the correct channel.

"Residents in the Upper East Side get a chilling wake-up call this morning when a couple of high school students find puddles of blood in the alley on their way to school. Police investigators say that the amount at the scene is more than enough to cause exsanguination. They don't currently know whether the blood samples are human or animal. This video we are about to show you contains somewhat graphic imagery. It is not recommended for younger viewers." A blonde of an older model recited her lines off the teleprompter with the ease of a woman talking about her hair. Though her face betrayed no emotion, there remained a flicker of fear in her eyes as she stared into the camera.

"Oh, sick!" Lydia heard Andros complain as they were shown footage of the scene of the crime.

A brick wall and a garbage bestrewn alley didn't look like anything new. Not in New York City. It was the giant blood splatters painting the brown brick that captured the audience's attention. The blood looked shiny and fresh in the early morning sunlight. A ring of yellow tape and a couple of cops blocked off the alley from the street. The officers didn't even let the news station cameraman to get a better angle of the giant red splatters that still dripping down to the pavement. Drop by drop. The consistency looked too real to be paint. Too dark to look like fake blood either. All that stuff appeared to be the real deal, and there appeared to be a great deal of it. A lot of it.

"I wonder how much blood is that." Andros asked, being morbidly curious as usual.

"The entire human body, I'd bet."

"What happened? Did somebody just explode?"

"Can we change the channel please? I'd rather not have this image on my brain for the rest of the day, thank you very much."

Andros flipped the channel. "You'll hear no complaints from me." He shivered. "s**t. Every day it seems it all gets worse and worse. Like the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. How do you suppose they did that?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Let's just watch something more appetizing before I lose my late night bag of stale chips from last night." Lydia groaned again.

"You could just bring your own dinner. You have a kitchen. You can make food in there, in case you were wondering what the purpose of that room over there was for." Joking, Andros pointing towards the kitchen hiding behind a wood paneled wall.

Lydia tried not to laugh, but she loved his sarcasm. Chuckling, she reached for the pillow next to her and gave him a good smack in the face with it. "Don't be a smart ass."

Andros left around ten in the morning after commandeering Lydia's shower. He left the house and presumably hailed a cab or used his Lyft app to drive him home or to work. Considering the situation with Barbara, Lydia assumed he headed off to the latter. If she was married to a woman like Barbara, she'd head straight to work too. She washed the mugs and left them on the counter to dry. Changing the litter box, Lydia took out all the trash in the house with it while she was still up and about doing chores.

The temptation to flip on the T.V. and watch the news for further developments seemed steep. On the one hand, who'd want to have that on their brain the whole day? On the flip side, it piqued her morbid curiosity. She probably hadn't been the only one in the city wondering how much blood painted that wall and how it got there in the first place. If tried to think about it, she might have guessed that it measured a little more than the average human body's amount of blood. The splatter on the wall appeared to be a huge amount, but then again the large size of it could prove deceptive.

Lydia shuddered just thinking about it. How the blood got there wasn't any of her business. Like she said earlier, she didn't know and certainly didn't want to know. She had no business in the Upper East Side anyway. As long as it wasn't anybody she knew...

A knock at the door sent her scampering. She couldn't afford to live without precaution after what she experienced early in the morning; Lydia peeked through the peep hole just to be reassure herself that all was safe.

It should have been with a detective on her porch.

Lydia swung the door wide open. "Danny Boy! What are you doing here?" She wore a broad smile. Daniel 'Danny Boy' Murphy had been a high school sweetheart before they parted ways in the most congenial manner. He wanted to join the police force, she didn't know what to do with her life, but she didn't want to drag him down with her.

"Can I come in?"

"Oh dear God, who died?" Lydia gasped.

Daniel looked at her confused, "What?"

"Well, usually when a detective arrives at your doorstep, asking to come in, they're usually the bearer of bad news. So, I ask again, who died?" Lydia pulled the door open wider for him to enter, not that he needed much room. Daniel hadn't been gifted in the muscles department, though if worse comes to worse he could still fight his way out of a desperate situation if he needed to.

He shook his head, taking off his hat. "Nobody died. I think."

Lydia didn't like his tone. Because whenever Daniel used that ambiguous, mysterious tone, it was promptly followed by a favor to ask of her. She led him into the living room.

"Do you want some coffee?" She asked as she walked to the kitchen.

"No, thanks," he replied.

Lydia turned right back around after hearing his reply. She crashed into her couch while he took the arm chair on the other end. He hunched over in his seat while his fingers wrestled with his tie. He pulled the same gesture with his shirt collar back when they went to St. Mary's and he tried asking her to prom. Some things never change. Nostalgia aside, she knew Daniel wanted something, and it certainly wasn't asking her out on a date. He wanted something else. Something more along the lines of business.

Clearing his throat, "I need your help again."

"No."

"What do you mean 'no'?"

"You're a cop. By now you should know that when a lady says 'no', she means 'no.' Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. You are not dragging me back into that mess, Daniel. I'm not doing it again. I'm fed up as it is between my writing and the graveyard shift. I'm not going down that road again."

"How is your book coming along anyway?" Daniel thought he was being cute. Lydia chomped on her tongue this time.

"Don't change the subject. I know exactly what you're asking me. And my answer is an affirmative, positively 'no!'" Lydia crossed her arms over her chest.

"But we don't even know if the victim is human! Come, Lyd…just one more time. Then, I'm done. I promise. Just one last favor. Please." And now he was begging. Lydia would find it kind of adorable if she wasn't supremely nettled right now. She had enough on her plate, she didn't need any of that coming back to bite her in the ass.

But…Daniel also compensated her for a job well-done. Out of his own pocket. It wasn't that she needed the money, but she did enjoy free food and a show now and then. With work and her writing, she was hard pressed for down time. And Daniel would protect her. Free bodyguard!

Rubbing her temples, Lydia groaned. "Where do you want me?"

"Have you seen the news? The blood they found in the Upper East Side?" Daniel looked serious. And if Danny Boy was serious, the situation really looked grim.

"Are you shitting me?" She gawked at him with her jaw to the floor. Lydia shuddered again at the memory. All that blood…seeping down the wall. She tried not to throw up.

"I wish I was, Lyd." Daniel ran his hand through his hair. The longer she looked at him, the more he looked like an awkward teenager again.

She rolled her eyes and tried to pretend to be deciding. If it meant that much to him…

"Alright, alright, but the second there's a names, I'm outta there. I don't need to get mixed up in your job again." Lydia pushed herself off the couch and started heading upstairs. "I'm gonna go change. You wait here. I'll be back in fifteen minutes or less."

Daniel rose from his chair. He tried to wrap his arms around her to give her a hug, but Lydia pushed him gently away. She wagged her finger in his face like a scolding mother.

"You owe me dinner, you know that?"

Daniel gave her one of his biggest smiles. She forgot how handsome he could be sometimes. Just not when he asked for risky favors. She would have liked how his cute little dimples puckered when he smiled at her, but then she remembered that he asked her to risk life, limb, and/or jail time for his sake. Pouting, she glared up at him. He may have been over a foot taller than her. His height never intimidated her, and it certainly wouldn't work now. Nor would that stupid smile of his and stupid dimples and stupidly charming freckles.

"Your usual Chinese from 3rd?"

Lydia seemed to groan for the umpteenth time. She climbed the stairs, but she looked back to find him at the foot of them. "How do you know me so well?"

"You're predictable, I guess."

"Yeah, well, did you predict this?" Lydia flashed him her middle finger before scampering up the remaining steps. She could still hear him laughing from the bottom of her stairs. It set her heart pounding. She kind of missed it.

Lydia put away such thoughts as she changed out of her PJ's into something more suitable for streetwear. Jeans and a t-shirt would suffice. She met him at her porch after leaving some food and water for the cats and locked the door as she left.

"Do you remember the drill?" Daniel asked her as he escorted her to his car which sat down the street. He pulled the door open for her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill," she huffed as she situated herself into the seat. The seat had been left pulled almost all the way back. His partner must have been sitting in there recently. Detective Matthews stood even taller than Daniel. Lydia adjusted the seat accordingly and strapped herself into the seat belt just as Daniel made himself comfortable in the seat next to her.

"You ready?"

She nodded.

"I just hope that you didn't eat a big breakfast," Daniel laughed.

As they drove up the street, Lydia wished she hadn't had breakfast at all. Her stomach curled up inside off her. It churned and bubbled with trepidation. One favor for Daniel never went just as he said. Lydia estimated that he'd call on her again before the week was through. She suspected that this wouldn't be the end. Not by a long shot.