by Lucy Score
“What about changing the future?” Riley pinched the bridge of her nose. “Like if someone sees the future, are they obligated to change it? Should they change it? Are they even capable of changing it?”
“I don’t have a definitive answer for you, sweetie. Even if someone were capable of changing the future, that someone would have to question whether it would be ethical to do so. You know your grandmother is on the ethics committee of the North American Psychics Guild. She’d be able to provide more guidance in that area,” Blossom said. “You should give her a call.”
Elanora Basil was a dour, terrifying matriarch. She was also one of the most well-known mediums on the East Coast. She’d been offered her own reality show and had dismissed the offer as “poppycock.” Also filed under Poppycock was her granddaughter’s rejection of the family gifts.
“Thanks, Mom. I was just… wondering,” Riley said, having no intention of calling up her grandmother for a chat about psychic ethics.
“Any time, kiddo! I hope this helped.”
It hadn’t. Not one little bit.
It took Riley four tries to actually get out of the Jeep in front of the police station on Walnut Street. She immediately got back behind the wheel and slammed the door.
“Nope. This is so stupid. What am I supposed to do? Go in there and say, ‘hey, I had a psychic vision that my neighbor is going to get shot’?”
“Beats doing nothing and then feeling like crapola when he gets murdered.”
“Not now, Uncle Jimmy.”
“Just sayin’, even if he is a prick, you’d feel bad if he was a dead prick, and you could have done something about it.”
Her dead uncle had a point.
Riley swore under her breath and closed her eyes. “This sucks,” she muttered to herself.
She took a deep breath and did what she never did: Tried to be psychic.
She called up the vision from memory and walked through it step by step.
It was steadier this time. Or she was. Either way, the third-floor hallway wasn’t tilt-a-whirling around, and she wasn’t barfing up tacos. It was dark. The house was quiet. And through those weird puffy clouds, she could just make out a shadow moving toward Dickie’s door. She did her best to mentally pan down.
Sweat broke out on the back of her neck, but she clung to the scene for dear life. Black sneakers wavered between clouds. Black sneakers with red flames. A leather-gloved hand knocked lightly.
The TV noise on the other side of the door cut off. Then footsteps.
“Don’t answer the freaking door, Dickie,” Riley said, hoping that if she could change the vision, she’d also change the future.
But the dumbass answered the door. He was dressed in that tattered robe and, once again, hadn’t bothered to secure it.
“I told you,” he grumbled. “You got a problem, you bring it up with your boss, you cocksucker.” They were Dickie’s last words. He started to slam the door, but that gloved hand stopped him. The gun came up. Fired.
Riley shook herself out of it. Sweat ran like Niagara freaking Falls down her back. Her heart was pounding, and her breath came in short sharp bursts like she’d just run half a mile after the ice cream truck. A wave of nausea hit her.
Was it any wonder she blocked this crap? Who the hell wanted to feel like this all the time? It was like opening herself up to a case of the flu.
Still shaking, she slid back out into the June sunshine and shut the car door.
“You can do this,” she told herself. “Go on in there and tell them Dickie Frick is going to get murdered. And then run before they break out the straitjacket.” Straightening her shoulders, she took one last shaky breath and marched across the street.
A lifetime of TV shows had promised her a busy bullpen of uniformed officers and detectives drinking bad coffee and talking shit. Instead, she found a stark waiting room with sturdy wooden chairs lining three of the walls. Flickering fluorescent bulbs lit the space. Signs forbade visitors from bringing weapons, tobacco products, and pets inside. They also required visitors to wear pants and shoes.
Two of the vinyl chairs were taken. One by a very pissed-off looking mom who was asking Siri to find the closest military school. The other by a bearded man wearing a jacket much heavier than the weather called for and stained, baggy sweatpants. He was snoring.
There was a plexiglass window in the wall next to a locked door. Riley approached.
“Can I help you?” The officer on the other side of the glass was in uniform, but—given the grilled chicken salad and worn paperback at his elbow—it looked like getting dressed was as close to the action as he got.
She stepped closer. “I think something bad is going to happen to my… uh, friend,” she said. No need to tell him more information than necessary in case he decided to call for some nice, burly orderlies.
The officer blinked very slowly. “Um-hmm.” His name tag read Sergeant Cornelius.
“I think someone is going to try to hurt him,” she said.
“What makes you think that?” he asked with a stifled yawn. Apparently, she was boring him.
She gave up on subtle and went for it. “Look, someone might show up at his apartment and maybe shoot him.”
“Are you telling me you’re planning on shooting your friend?” the sergeant asked, still not nearly interested enough.
“Uh. No.” This guy’s listening skills fell well below adequate.
“Good,” he grunted. “Because that’s a hell of a lot of paperwork.”
“Look. I just think he’s in trouble, and maybe if you talked to him or staked out his place—”
“Are you on any medications or have you recently gone off of a medication?” he asked, tapping out a beat with the pen in his hand.
“No.”
“Any illegal drugs?”
“No.”
“Do you have any evidence that your friend is in danger?”
She wondered how many unhinged people this sergeant saw on any given day.
“Well. No,” she conceded.
Riley saw him write down “5150?” on the notepad next to his salad. Everyone who’d lived through the Bad Britney years knew that a 5150 was an involuntary psychiatric hold. He was focusing on the wrong problem.
She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder and got ready to bolt. “Look. His name is Dickie Frick. He lives on Front Street, and something bad is going to happen to him. It’s going to be someone he knows. Not me. I’ve done my civic duty. Now it’s up to you to make sure he doesn’t get murdered.”
“Uh-huh. Okay. Ma’am, why don’t you have a seat out there, and I’ll see if I can find someone to take your statement?” He crossed out the question mark.
Definitely not happening. Work probably wouldn’t let her use PTO for being thrown in jail. “I gotta go,” she said and hustled out the door.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” She dashed across the street and jumped into the Jeep. Her hands were shaking so hard she dropped the keys twice before she got them in the ignition. Worst getaway driver ever. Fortunately, the bored sergeant hadn’t meandered out of the building yet, gun drawn.
Still, she wasn’t taking any chances. Jamming her foot on the accelerator, she peeled out of the parking space.
“How did it go?”
“Not now, Uncle Jimmy.”
“You still have half an hour in your lunch break. We could do some fishing.”
12
5:02 p.m. Saturday, June 20
Dickie lived through the night. Riley knew this because she stayed up until dawn, leaning against her door with her hockey stick at the ready. There was no manual on timelines for visions coming true. She knew this because she spent two hours of her all-night vigil scouring the internet for such a manual.
She was so exhausted that she fell asleep in corpse pose during Wander’s afternoon yoga class and snored until her father nudged her with his hairy, bare foot.
“You look terrible,” Lily announced when Riley slumped through
the back door. Her neighbor peered at her through steamed glasses over a simmering pot of Almost Like Olive Garden Marinara. “Don’t you think that new boyfriend of yours deserves the teensiest bit of effort?”
“Boyfriend?” Riley yawned.
“Hot guy, tight buns. Carried your groceries,” Mrs. Penny said, peering over the screen of her laptop.
“Oh. Right. Nick.” One meal with her, and Nick had gone from fake boyfriend to “see you around.” At least her bad luck with men was still intact.
“The Hottie with the Hiney,” Lily giggled, wiping her glasses on the front of her frilly kitty cat apron. The woman was eighty-one years old and more boy crazy than a thirteen-year-old at a Jonas Brothers concert.
“What does this Nick guy do for a living? What’s his last name? Did you run him to see if he has any priors?” Mrs. Penny was less boy crazy and more just plain crazy.
“Nick’s… in sales,” Riley hedged. She wasn’t going to see him again, but she also didn’t have the energy to share that information with her neighbors. If she did, she’d have to decline Mrs. Penny’s offer to set her up with some distant relative and spend an hour scouring her eyeballs after Lily gave her more worksheets detailing Kama Sutra positions.
“What kind of sales?” Mrs. Penny pressed.
“Uh, insurance?” Riley said. “Have either of you seen Dickie today?” she asked, changing the subject.
Mrs. Penny snorted. “Saw that walking skid mark leave for work about an hour ago.”
If he was at work, he wasn’t getting murdered across the hall. The terrifying ticking clock in her head got a little quieter.
“The cops didn’t stop by, did they?” she asked innocently.
“Police? No! Are you okay, Riley?” Lily asked, waving the marinara spoon in her direction. “Whoopsies!” A splatter of sauce hit the floor, reminding Riley a little too much of the blood in her vision. She gagged.
Mrs. Penny eyed her suspiciously through thick glasses. “Is this about that shitweasel getting engaged? You didn’t have him whacked, did you?”
“Griffin?” Riley said. “No. Nope. Happy for him. Everything is great. Oh, hey. Unrelated. Can everyone remember to keep the doors and windows locked at all times?”
“Gosh, Riley. I don’t know if we can,” Lily said, pouring a little red wine into the sauce and then taking a tipple straight from the bottle. “Mr. Willicott lost his keys in 2009.”
Riley closed her eyes and took an exasperated breath. “If I make new keys for Mr. Willicott, can we start locking up around here?”
“Probably, dear,” Lily said brightly.
Riley escaped to the quiet of the third floor. At the top of the stairs, she stared at Dickie’s door, debating.
She’d gone to the police over a hallucination. Wasn’t her civic duty fulfilled?
“If I were an underwear-shedding, perv-bar-owning guy,” she mused out loud. “Would I want to know if someone thought I was going to be murdered?”
Looking at Dickie’s door, she recalled the marinara splatter and sighed. “Crap.”
Inside her apartment, she grabbed a note pad and pen.
Dickie,
Don’t answer your door late at night. Someone might shoot you in the head.
Sincerely,
Riley
Nope.
Dickie,
I hallucinated your brutal murder. Can you maybe be extra careful for the next week or so? Also, keep your underwear off the bathroom floor.
Best Wishes,
Your Neighbor
Hmm. No.
Dickie,
Someone might be coming to murder you, and I think you know them. If you know what I’m talking about, please go to the police and don’t answer your door.
A concerned citizen
Just the right balance of warning and “you’re now responsible for your own life,” she decided.
Satisfied, Riley slipped the note under his door and returned to her apartment. There. She’d gone to the cops—who had ignored her—and she’d personally warned the victim. Her hands were officially clean. Short of hurling her body in front of Dickie’s if bullets started flying, there was nothing else she could do.
Well, except…
She glanced at her phone. Maybe there was one other thing.
After a communal spaghetti dinner, Riley returned to her apartment, changed into her summer pajamas—yoga shorts and a tank top—and settled on the couch to watch how to ram a car on Made It Out Alive.
It was after midnight when the telltale creak in the hallway jolted her out of other people’s survival. Anxiety rising, she tiptoed to her door and peered through the peephole.
It was Dickie. Alive and… well, normal. He was standing in his doorway, holding her note.
Relief was swift.
Life saved. She’d done her duty. Now, she could get back to normal.
The son of a bitch crumpled up the paper and tossed it over his shoulder into the hall.
“Seriously?” she hissed.
He slammed his door.
“You’re welcome,” she called through the door. “Jerk.”
She was definitely not going to be the guy’s human shield now. Maybe just one quick sweep to check the doors and windows downstairs and she’d officially forget the whole thing. She padded down the stairs to the first floor.
Both the front and back doors were unlocked, and a window in the front parlor was wide open.
“It’s like living with a bunch of toddlers,” she grumbled, locking everything up tight. They were all going to have to have a long conversation about safety this weekend.
Under a cloud of annoyance, she returned to her apartment, locked her door, and decided to watch one more episode before bed.
When she jolted awake on the couch, the TV screen was asking her if she was still watching. There was no noise, other than the usual creaks and groans of an old house full of old people, but something had woken her.
Something like a knock.
Was that Dickie’s voice? Was he talking to someone in the hall?
Tripping over the blanket tangled around her legs, she was only halfway to the door when she heard two quick bangs followed by a definitive thump.
“No, no, no, no,” she chanted and grabbed the hockey stick.
Holding her breath, she looked through the peephole and caught a glimpse of movement in the dark hall. Dickie’s door was open.
“Shit.” Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in the roots of her hair. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
There was something round and shiny hovering in the dark, like an orb. The orb disappeared, and she realized that she was squinting at Dickie’s closed door.
What if she was imagining everything? What if she was still asleep on the couch? She glanced behind her half expecting to see herself drooling on a pillow. Nope. She was definitely awake.
She heard another sound. The haunted house creak of Mrs. Penny’s door on the second floor. She lived directly under Dickie. If the woman heard the shots and came to investigate, it would be a third-floor bloodbath.
There was a noise somewhere on the stairs. Loud, fast footsteps. She had no choice. Gripping the hockey stick, she flung her door open.
“Stay in your rooms and call 911,” Riley shouted and charged for the stairs.
She was halfway down to the second floor when she ran full speed into a solid figure dressed in black.
Caught!
She would have screamed, would have bludgeoned the stranger, but gravity and forward momentum had other ideas.
Together, they plunged down the stairs.
Riley’s shoulder and hip took the brunt of the impact. Then every other body part took a turn as the much larger, heavier body used hers as a cushion. Repeatedly.
She hit the landing with an “oomph,” turned war cry when the attacker landed on her chest. Blindly, she struck out kicking and flailing as hands clutched her shoulders.
She was
not going to get murdered. Her mother would never forgive her.
Lights burned to life.
“Jesus, Thorn! Knock it off!”
She paused mid-flail and opened an eye. Nick was sitting on top of her.
“Did you kill him?” she groaned. “I can’t believe I let you buy me pizza.”
“Thorn,” he said, pushing her hair out of her face. “Are you okay?”
“What in the holy hell is all this racket?” Mr. Willicott bellowed.
“Everyone stay in your rooms,” Nick yelled back.
“Who are you?” Fred wanted to know.
“That’s Riley’s boyfriend,” Mrs. Penny shouted.
Great. Now her neighbors were going to think she was dating a murderer.
“I heard cannon fire!” Mr. Willicott shouted. “Goddamn river pirates!”
“I think someone drove a truck into the building,” Lily offered.
“Did you kill him?” Riley asked Nick.
His gaze darted up to the third floor. “I was in the parking lot and heard the shots,” he said grimly. “I was running up the stairs when you threw yourself at me.”
“You’re sure?” She winced. The shock was fading, and pain began to bloom everywhere. She couldn’t tell what hurt the most. It all hurt. A lot.
“Sure I didn’t sneak in here, fire two shots, and then wait for you to hurl yourself into me on the stairs? Yeah. Positive.” Nick was running his hands down her arms and legs. “Is anything broken? Can you sit up?”
“Ungh. I think I’m okay.”
“Riley, I called 911, and they want to know what happened,” Fred yelled from downstairs. “Should I tell them about the river pirates?”
“Tell them you heard gunshots in your house,” she called weakly.
Nick helped her into a seated position, and the stairwell swayed. A symphony of nauseating pains sparked to life.
A curtain of red blurred the vision in her left eye. “Oh my God, is that blood?” She slapped a hand to her forehead and yelped. “Am I decapitated?”