Spirited Away

by Lena Gregory

  “Go ahead. I’ll be right there.” Cass took a small stack of bills from the safe. She hadn’t left cash in the register overnight since someone had broken in—not that they’d stolen anything, but the knowledge of how easily they could have had spooked her.

  She counted out singles for change, then hit the button to open the register drawer and paused. Two crystals sat in one of the compartments. She lifted the first stone. Black tourmaline. Its protective powers were well known, its ability to repel negative energy quite strong. She’d given one to Bee at a time in his life when he’d needed the aid. “Bee?”

  “Yeah?” He put one sandwich on the table and popped another in the microwave without looking at her.

  “Did you leave this here?”

  “Leave what where?” he asked without turning around. “And knowing how OCD you are, probably not.”

  “This.” She held up the black tourmaline. Sunlight reflected off the black crystal, and it warmed in her hand.

  He told Beast to sit, tossed him a piece of bacon from the container he’d gotten for him, then turned to Cass. “What is it?”

  “A black tourmaline.”

  He frowned and patted his pocket. “Nope. Mine’s right here.”

  Warmth surged through Cass. Bee didn’t believe in her hocus-pocus, and yet he’d kept the stone she’d given him. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “What?” His cheeks turned red. “It was a gift from a friend.”

  Not wanting to embarrass him, she let it drop. “When I opened the register, there were two stones in the drawer.”

  Bee frowned. “Who put the cash away last night?”

  “I did,” Stephanie said. “There was nothing in the drawer when I emptied it and put the money in the safe.”

  Cass vaguely remembered Stephanie saying she’d put the money in the safe sometime during the night. “When did you put it away?”

  “I took what was there out of the register when I first came in, before I went up for the reading. When the reading . . . uh . . . got interrupted, I never bothered putting it back in the drawer.”

  “So, anyone could have opened the drawer while we were upstairs.” Cass loved the old-fashioned register, loved the way it looked sitting atop the driftwood counter, and since she had no other employees, she’d never worried about needing codes or a key to open it. Now that she’d added the upstairs room and wasn’t always in view of the register, she might have to consider getting a newer model.

  “What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s not like it’s going to hurt you. I thought black tourmaline was supposed to protect against negative energy?” Bee blushed an even deeper shade of red. “Or some such nonsense.”

  “It is. But how did it get there?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you dropped it out of the basket when you pulled it out from beneath the counter.”

  “Maybe . . .” Though they all knew that wasn’t likely, especially since she hadn’t sorted any stones or crystals since Stephanie emptied the drawer and moved the money to the safe. “Except, this was sitting in the drawer next to it.”

  She held up the stone. The instant the sunlight hit the layers of iridescent minerals, the crystal ignited with the illusion of flames flickering within it. Swirls of brownish red, orange, and green danced beneath its surface, gripping, hypnotic. Cass stared deeper into the flames, losing herself in the kaleidoscope of colors. A spot of black filled its center.

  A chill gripped her.

  The black churned among the flames, teasing, disappearing only to resurface somewhere else an instant later.

  “He needs you.” The voice came not from within the stone but from inside her own mind. It filled her, consumed her with the need to help—

  “Cass!” Bee shook her arm.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, are you all right? You zoned out there for a minute.”

  Cass glanced at the fire agate again, but whatever trance had gripped her had vanished. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.”

  “What is that thing?” Bee pointed to the crystal still held out in her hand. “And what did it do to you?”

  Cass laughed, laid her hand over Bee’s, which was still resting on her arm, and squeezed. “It’s okay, Bee. It didn’t do anything to me.”

  He lifted a brow, released her, and took a step back. “I don’t know about that. You took one look at it and went . . . somewhere else.”

  Stephanie, who didn’t hold Bee’s reservations about the supernatural, stared into the translucent bands, her eyes wide, mesmerized, but not as caught up as Cass had been. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s fire agate, a stone used for protection since ancient times. Some say it adorned the armor of warriors going into battle, was used by magicians to ward off storms, used by kings to protect their kingdoms.”

  “So, someone put two stones used for protection in the register drawer where you would be sure to find them, but why?” Bee studied the stone over Stephanie’s shoulder but made no move to touch it or take it from her.

  “Fire agate is not only used for protection. Aside from creating a shield to protect you from negative energy, it brings a sense of calm, peace, and security. It soothes and calms you, directs your focus, clears your mind . . .” She hesitated, knowing Bee would immediately grasp the implication if she continued.

  “And?” Bee asked.

  “It also brings strength, enhances your analytical ability, improves perceptiveness, and gives you the courage and confidence to take action—”

  “Nope.” Bee held up his hands. “You can stop right there. You will not be taking any kind of action.”

  “Bee—”

  He covered his ears and retreated toward the table. “Not hearing you. La la la la.”

  “Ignore him.” Stephanie frowned. “So, what do you think it means? And how did it get in the register drawer?”

  “As for how it got there, I have no idea.” Agate worked best if worn in the area below the heart, so she put both stones into her shorts pocket. “But I think it means I need to help someone.”

  “Oh, puh-leaze.” Bee pulled out one of the velvet chairs at the round table in the back corner of the shop and sat. “Don’t you think that’s a bit of a stretch? Assuming someone needs your help because there were two rocks in the register drawer?”

  Cass and Stephanie joined him at the table. Knowing he’d gotten all the food he was going to get from Bee, Beast settled at Cass’s side with a chew toy.

  Cass unwrapped her sandwich and sipped her lukewarm coffee. “Actually, there’s a little more to it than just the stones.”

  “Of course there is,” Bee muttered and took a big bite of his bacon, egg, and cheese.

  Cass ignored her sandwich in favor of the much-needed caffeine. “A couple of times now, I thought I heard a woman’s voice.”

  Stephanie perched on the edge or her chair, her breakfast still wrapped in front of her. “What did she say?”

  “Once, I’m pretty sure I heard the words ‘help him.’ But a couple of times, I’m certain she said ‘he needs you.’”

  “Who do you think she meant?” Stephanie asked.

  Bee swallowed and wiped his mouth. “Would you two please stop talking about some disembodied voice like it’s a person. It creeps me out.”

  “Sorry, Bee.” Stephanie offered her sweetest smile, but they all knew she wasn’t the least bit sorry.

  “So, what?” He set his sandwich down. “All this time, you’ve been telling me you’re not actually psychic, that you are just extremely intuitive and well-trained at figuring out what people are hiding, even from themselves. Were you lying?”

  “Of course not.” The insinuation hurt. “I would never lie to you or take advantage of anyone.”

  He folded his arms on the table and tilted his head. “So, what’s different now?”

  Relief came with the realization he wasn’t accusing her, just trying to get to the bottom of what was going on. And he did have a point. What was different now? Were l
atent psychic abilities coming to the surface with her return to Bay Island? Had she somehow unlocked a talent she’d always possessed? Or had something happened since she returned?

  “When I was a kid, things just came to me, things I shouldn’t know but somehow did, and I didn’t question it.” Perhaps the innocence of childhood had allowed her mind to accept what she couldn’t justify as an adult. “When I was a teenager, I used to talk to tourists on the beach, tell them things that often, but not always, turned out to be true. It’s how I earned extra money during the summers.”

  She took a bite of her sandwich, chewed, and swallowed, more to buy herself a few minutes to think than from hunger. The salt and grease sat in her stomach like a lump. The roll, rubbery from its time in the microwave, didn’t help matters.

  “When I went to college and then to medical school, my life became more grounded in reality. I started searching for explanations for everything. It wasn’t good enough to accept things were just because they were; I needed answers for why things were that way. When I married Donald, the need for order became an obsession. I think, on some level, I always knew he was cheating on me.” Actually, that wasn’t true. He hadn’t always cheated on her. But she’d always known he was going to, deep in her gut, and she’d ignored that instinct, couldn’t accept the knowledge she should have had no way of possessing.

  “Anyway, when I lost my patient, a patient I saw just before he died, a patient I might have been able to save if I’d listened to my instincts . . . I think something inside of me broke. Then when I went home and found Donald, well . . . I couldn’t take any more. And then my parents passed away. I came back to Bay Island a mess.” All that remained of Dr. Donovan had shattered during that year, leaving only a shell. Cass, a woman who needed to be strong enough to leave her past behind her and create a future, had emerged from the pieces.

  Bee got up and rounded the table. He crouched at her side and took both of her hands in his. “I am so sorry for the pain you’ve suffered, sweetie. But look what you’ve accomplished since your return. You’re an amazing woman, Cass. A good woman, who only wants to help people. And you know what? You do. Every day. If you say you can talk to g-ghosts, then I believe you think you can. Whether or not it’s real, I have no idea, but however you receive your information, I say you should follow your instincts, because they seem to be spot-on most of the time.”

  “Thank you, Bee.” She forced the words past the lump in her throat. Bee always had a way of knowing just what she needed.

  “Of course.” He smiled. “And let’s face it, even the best of us make a mistake once in a while.”

  Cass laughed and threw her arms around Bee’s neck. “Thank you, Bee. I needed that.”

  The pep talk and the laugh.

  He hugged her back, then returned to his breakfast. “So, where does that leave us?”

  “Well, I was thinking about it on the way over here. Whatever is happening, it’s coming to me in the form of a woman’s voice.”

  “Like last time, when you saw a woman?” Stephanie asked.

  Bee rolled his eyes.

  “Not exactly. I haven’t seen anything.” Except for that black swirl in the center of the fire agate, a swirl that shouldn’t have been there, was foreign to the stone. “I just hear a distant voice. But just like when it started last time, it only seems to happen when I’m sleep-deprived. When my mind is completely clear, open, drifting, often in the moments just before I would doze off.”

  “So, maybe you’re blocking it the rest of the time,” Stephanie suggested.

  She’d thought of that, while Bee was driving and she had allowed her mind to drift, and it did make the most sense. “I think that’s exactly what’s happening. I think I need to accept—sorry, Bee—that ghosts are real, and I am somehow able to hear messages if they are directed at me. I just need to learn how to open myself up more to receiving them.”

  After everything that had happened since her return to Bay Island, there was no denying their existence.

  “Is that possible?” Stephanie finally unwrapped her sandwich and started eating.

  “I’m not sure.” But she was going to have to figure it out, and quickly.

  Bee groaned. As much as he didn’t want to accept anything related to the paranormal, there was no way he’d be left out of the discussion. “Are you having dreams again?”

  “No, not this time.” At least, not yet, anyway.

  “Okay, all of that aside.” Bee waved his hand around, dismissing what he couldn’t deal with.

  Cass didn’t mind, though. Actually, she understood. “Yeah?”

  “I want to ask you a question, and I want you to answer immediately. Don’t think about your answer at all, just blurt out your first gut instinct. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Cass settled, facing him.

  “I’m serious, Cass.”

  Cass took a moment to try to clear her mind. She closed her eyes and imagined the black swirl in the center of the agate’s flames, brought the image up in her mind, focused fully, keeping her mind blank. “Go ahead.”

  “Where does that leave you right now? What do you think you’re supposed to do?”

  “I have to help Emmett.”

  Chapter Nine

  “And how do you propose we help Emmett?” Bee stood and started to clear the table without finishing his breakfast, a sure sign he was agitated.

  Cass wrapped the paper around her nearly full sandwich and handed it to him to throw out. “I didn’t say we had to help; I said I had to help.”

  “Yeah, well, I, we, what’s the difference?”

  “Thanks, Bee. You’re the best.”

  “Hey!” Stephanie folded her arms across her chest in feigned outrage. “What am I, chopped liver?”

  “You’re the best too, Stephanie.”

  Stephanie grinned at Bee.

  He stuck his tongue out at her and walked toward the front of the shop. “Sorry, Cass, but I have got to open a door. I’m roasting in here.”

  “Go ahead, I have to open in a few minutes anyway.” Cass hauled herself out of the chair and went to open the back door as well. Hopefully she’d get some kind of cross-breeze.

  “Do you want me to call someone in to fix it?” Stephanie asked.

  “Nah. I’ll wait and see what happens with Emmett later on.”

  “Are you sure? This heat is supposed to stick around for at least the next few days.”

  “I’m sure.” Especially considering Emmett probably wouldn’t be in half as much trouble if he hadn’t come to her aid during the reading. “It feels like too much of a betrayal, you know? Especially after he stuck up for me last night.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” Stephanie fiddled with the thermostat but let the matter drop. “Anyway, the question remains, what can we do to help?”

  Cass pulled her hair back and tied it up with a band she kept on her wrist. “Did you see Tank yet?”

  “He came home for a little while early this morning, but he couldn’t stay long.”

  “Did he have anything to say?” Bee asked.

  She stared pointedly at him. “You mean the kind of anything I’m not supposed to tell anyone, especially you two?”

  “Yup, that’s the kind.” Bee grinned from ear to ear, the prospect of good dirt making him forget all about the stifling heat. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you just tell us the stuff you’re allowed to tell us? Then, afterward, we’ll coax you into telling us the good stuff. This way you can say it wasn’t your fault you spilled the beans.”

  She scowled and leaned back against the counter. “He didn’t actually say too much, just that it didn’t look good for Emmett. Apparently, Emmett found Dirk in the trunk of a car on his lot late last night and called the police.”

  “Why would he have called the police if he’d killed him?” Bee beat Cass to the argument she’d have made in Emmett’s defense.

  Stephanie shrugged. “That’s what I said, and apparently Emmett posed that same argumen
t, but Tank said it could have been a lot of things: guilt, remorse, fear Joey would somehow stumble across the body. Who knows why people do things when they’re not thinking clearly?”

  Cass couldn’t really argue that. Plenty of people, even innocent people, had been known to react inappropriately or out of character to unexpected situations. “Did he say what Emmett was doing at the garage so late?”

  Stephanie was already shaking her head before Cass finished the question. “All he said was Emmett insists Dirk was alive last he saw him.”

  “I heard him say that last night, said Dirk came to the garage looking for a fight, but Emmett didn’t engage. He says he went back inside, and I believe him. There’s no way Emmett would have risked leaving Joey alone, not for anyone, especially someone like Dirk Brinkman, who’s clearly nothing but a bully.”

  At the mention of bullies, an image of the stranger who’d accosted her in the deli popped into her head. She still had to figure out who he was and why he had a problem with her. Could he have had something to do with Dirk’s behavior at the reading? Had the stranger put Dirk up to heckling her? Had the two been in cahoots somehow? The man had threatened to ruin her life.

  Bee had come to Bay Island after Cass had left for college, and they’d met and become fast friends since her return. But Stephanie had grown up on Bay Island, had gone to school with Cass. “Stephanie, do you remember someone having a major grudge against me?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I ran into a man in the deli today who said I ruined his life and threatened to return the favor. Do you know of anyone who’d be that angry with me?” How could she not remember someone who harbored such a grudge against her? Someone she’d obviously hurt in some way?

  “What did he look like?”

  “Heavy-set, sallow complexion, graying combover, maybe ten or fifteen years older than us.” When would she have even interacted with someone so much older than her?

  Stephanie shook her head. “No one I can think of, but I can get some yearbooks out later if you want. I’m pretty sure the school keeps a copy from every year, and the receptionists are still in for half a day, even during the summer.”