Chasing Evil Reveals Psychic John Edward and FBI Agent Robert Hilland's Unlikely Partnership — Read an Excerpt! (Exclusive) By Lizz Schumer

Before we left the office, I quickly grabbed a few extras from female colleagues: a bracelet, a compact mirror, a woman’s watch, and a necklace. Control items, I thought. If this guy was legit, he should be able to tell the difference between what belonged to Fran and what didn’t, right?

I was still sitting on a fence of extremes when it came to this psychic.

Part of me still thought he was a fraud, and the lawman in me wanted to take him down. I even researched reasons to arrest him. Wire fraud? Mail fraud? And yet, my stubborn heart wanted to believe he was the real deal.

We arrived at his office in Long Island as a family was leaving. They were crying and thanking the young man, whom I took to be John, in the center of the room. The mother threw her arms around him and hugged tight.

“You have no idea what you have done for us today.”

I could feel my anger rising. This guy was taking advantage of a grieving family. The young man — he had a boyish face, brown hair, and glasses — approached me.

“Hi, I’m John. Are you Agent Hilland?”

He was not what I expected. From the voice on the radio, I imagined an older man with a grand, theatrical, presence. This guy was younger than me, humble and unassuming. He looked like someone’s kid brother. He looked like goddamn Harry Potter.

“Yes. Thanks for seeing us,” I said, introducing Dansman.

“Glad to help. Oh. You’re not FBI,” John said to Dansman.

“You’re right, I’m not,” said Dansman. He shot me an I-told-you-so look. See?

Okay, one point for the psychic. But what else will he know? I was prepared for this to be a bust. We sat at a large, wooden desk in a plain, unadorned room. No candles, no incense, no crystal balls.

“My assistant tells me you need help with a case,” John began. “The first thing I need to say is that if I end up helping you, it must stay private between us. I don’t want you to mention it to the press, I don’t want to be in any paperwork.”

“That’s not a problem,” I told him.

“Good. Have either of you worked with a psychic before?”

“I have,” said Dansman. “A few times, in other cases.”

“Never,” I said.

“Let me explain how I work. The information comes to me from my spirit guides in three different ways: clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience. That means I see pictures, I hear thoughts and I get feelings or sensations. I will interpret what I’m seeing, hearing and feeling using my own frame of reference, and hopefully you’ll understand it.

“Some of the information you might understand right away. Some you might not. It’s important that you write everything down, even if you don’t understand. It could make sense to you later.”

We took out our notebooks and pens, ready to go.

“I’ll get people above you, to your side, and below you,” John continued, “meaning older, the same age, and younger. I might be off by a name, but not by an initial.”

And one more thing, he emphasized.

“Do not give me any information or try to steer me in any direction. I want to describe to you exactly what I’m getting without interference.”

We nodded.

“Before we begin, do you have any questions?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to confirm. This is an active case. It’s not our practice to discuss our investigations with the public, so …”

“As far as I’m concerned, you were never here.” John said, cutting me off. “I prefer it that way. Nothing personal, but I don’t like to get involved with law enforcement. My only condition in helping you guys is that you don’t mention to anyone that you met with me.”

Good. We were on the same page. Though I could see slight disappointment on Dansman’s face.

“Let’s get started,” said John. “Did you bring any belongings of the person you are looking for?” John asked.

Dansman pulled the items from a bag and placed them on John’s desk. John closed his eyes, took a deep breath, cupped his palms together and focused on them. After a minute, he reached over and moved the “control” items — bracelet, mirror, watch, necklace — from the group and put them in a pile to the side.

I was stunned. He figured it out right away.

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“I don’t know what these things are,” said John, “but they have nothing to do with the reason you’re here,” he said.

Dansman and I glanced at each other. Point two for the psychic. John returned his focus to Fran’s items and picked up her eyeglasses. He looked up, almost past us, as if he was staring at someone behind us.

“I’m seeing a woman. She looks older than her actual age. She’s crossed over. She has two names like Mary Anne, Barbara Anne … but people called her by her second name … ​there’s an F sound like Fern or Fran … wait. It’s Fran.”

My heart raced. Dansman’s eyes were locked on Edward. The next chunk of information came in a rush of words.

“She was vain about her appearance. She had breast implants — they’re showing me serial numbers on them — and dyed blond hair. Blue eyes. She wore a lot of makeup. Fran was a smoker. I smell cigarette smoke and strong perfume, like when a person tries to cover up the smoke scent with a lot of perfume. She’s also showing me that she couldn’t walk, like she broke her leg? She’s showing me crutches. I feel a strong pain in the back of my head. Was she struck in the head? Yes … ​she was hit in the back of the head with something. She didn’t see it coming. Weird,” John said, still looking beyond us.

“I feel like she was tricked into going somewhere by someone she trusted. A boyfriend or husband. He is still here, he hasn’t crossed. He has a simple J name, like John or Jim or Joe. And a second S name, very common, like … ​Smith.”

I shivered. This was unreal.

John put down the glasses and picked up the hairbrush.

“After she was hit in the head, the J-S name — let’s call him ‘Smith’ — strangled her to make sure she was dead. Not like a bloodbath or anything. It was like he knocked her out with one blow, then strangled her.”

I sat back in my chair, stunned. What the actual hell? Was he was seeing all this play out in front of him? I looked over at Dansman, who was equally shocked. I barely had time to register the horror he described when another rush of information came.

“He was much younger than her,” John continued. “Maybe 10 years. She was angry. Was there another woman? She thought there was another woman. But not in the same state where they were living.”

“She’s showing me stairs. They were upstairs, on a third floor if not higher. There was an argument. She confronted him about a bunch of things, not just one issue. It feels like a whole bunch of different things. Smith was lying to her and she knew it. She called him out on it. He felt like his worlds were crashing together.”

John shook his head.

“Man, this guy has major control issues. Major. He needs to be in control. Whatever she did or said, she was taking that control away from him, and he didn’t like it.”

Dansman and I scribbled notes as fast as we could, trying to keep up.

“The woman, F name — Fran — was fed up and demanded Smith take her somewhere. He was lying to her about so many things. I don’t understand this. She’s showing me furniture. Did he steal her furniture? There’s also a second home. Like I said, she was calling him out an all his lies.”

Dansman and I kept nodding. John kept getting hit after hit, like a pinball whacking against the bells in a machine. Tilt, tilt, tilt. But not only was John confirming details we already knew, he was giving information we didn’t know — details that made sense, information that rang true that we could follow up on.

We kept scribbling. He kept talking.

“So, Smith calms her down, he appeases her somehow. Like, ‘Don’t worry, Honey, I’ll show you everything is okay.’ I see them walking out of an apartment building or condo. She’s using crutches. It’s in the daytime, not at night. Wait, other people saw them leaving — a couple who live in the same building. It feels like they were walking in as she and Smith were leaving … Oh.”

John looked at Dansman. “You interviewed these people?”

Dansman nodded.

“And they told you they saw them leaving together. But the timing doesn’t line up. It’s like he kills her on a Saturday but you guys don’t know she’s missing until a week later.”

Again, Dansman nodded. He was speechless.

“So, he, Smith, helps this woman, Fran, to the car. He drives. She thinks she is going somewhere to see something she believes he is lying about. He’s taking her to this place … ​it feels right off a major highway. It’s ironic. She was nervous and pissed off, because she knew she was about to expose his lie. And he was nervous and pissed off, because he knew she was about to expose his lie. They both knew.”

“So, whatever this place is, it has an industrial feel to it, like metal and steel, blacktop, concrete … ​I hear the highway. It’s near a major highway with lots of traffic. There are many doors … ​metal garage doors …”

I was so charged up I couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

“Like a public storage unit?” I asked.

John’s eyes lit up.

“Yes. It absolutely feels like that. Definitely New Jersey, not far from where they lived and where he worked.”

Again, Dansman and I exchanged a glance. Smith had that public storage facility in New Brunswick, N.J., where Fran’s furniture was supposed to be.

John continued.

“It was still daylight. I see him pointing to a door and drawing her attention away from what he was about to do. Then he just did it.”

John’s eyes darted around, as if he was watching it happen.

“For her it was in an instant,” he said. “She didn’t even know what happened, she was unconscious before she hit the ground. Then, instantaneously, he pulls her inside whatever this thing is, this garage unit, and closes the door so nobody can see what’s happening.”

John paused, as if trying to process the deluge of images.

I had to ask. He said not to steer him in a direction, but he didn’t say not to ask questions.

“What did he do with her body?”

John glanced at me, then gazed again beyond me. He squinted, like he was trying to see or understand something.

“She’s not in one piece,” he said. “He dismembered her and put the pieces in something. She’s encapsulated.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

John’s brow furrowed.

“She’s encapsulated in something. I keep seeing cylinders … ​I’m not sure what this is. He’s very smart. Whatever he put her in, it’s got no smell and it’s somewhere no one would suspect there was a body … ​or pieces of a body.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I keep seeing cylinders. Her body is in these cylinders but also in something to keep her preserved, like fluid … ​or concrete.”

I’m sure Dansman was thinking what I was thinking. Smith worked at an industrial company called Carborundum, which produced refractory, heat-resistant concrete blocks.

“You know when you see a new development being built, and they have these huge concrete … ​I don’t know what you call them … storm drains?” John asked.

“Sewer drains?” I asked.

“Yeah. Like that. When you find her, her body parts will be remarkably intact. Well preserved.”

My heart was racing now. I was hanging on his every word.

“So, we will find her?”

John paused. He looked thoughtfully at whatever invisible presence was behind us.

“I think so. But it’s not going to be easy,” he said. “And it won’t be anytime soon.”

From CHASING EVIL, by John Edward and Robert Hilland. Copyright © 2025 by the author, and reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

Chasing Evil by John Edward and Robert Hilland comes out Sept. 2 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.