Donn's Shadow

by Caryn Larrinaga

  “Good Lord, you’re even more naïve than I thought. That’s what I want him to think, but Daphne wouldn’t let this guy buy a ticket, let alone perform with her.” He wrinkled his nose, like he smelled something foul. “He’s the worst kind of fraud. He assumes he’s the smartest person in the room, so he doesn’t bother with subtlety. He’s the perfect case study for you.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, hating being called naïve. The worst part was, he was right. Even though Nick had brought me here, even though this guy chose to be known professionally by a name I’d expect a child to give a dog, I didn’t want to believe Fang was a fraud. I wanted him to have a true psychic ability.

  “Okay, let’s test your instincts,” Nick said, voice still hushed. “Were you expecting to pay up front?”

  “I wasn’t expecting to pay anything at all,” I said pointedly. “Ten minutes ago, I didn’t even expect to be here.”

  He cracked a smile. “Fair enough. I’ll reimburse you. But humor me. When you get your hair done, do you pay in advance?”

  “No, I pay at the end.”

  “Right. So, think like Fang. Why ask your customers to pay before the reading?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. To make sure they don’t stiff me?”

  “No. You were glaring at me when you got out your wallet, so you didn’t see him clock your driver’s license when you opened it up. I’ll give him credit, he’s got a quick eye. But you gave him even more. You forked over your credit card, with your name stamped along the bottom. Don’t you think it’s taking a while for him to run the charge?”

  He was right. Fang had been gone several minutes. The reason dawned on me at once.

  “He’s back there, looking me up?”

  Nick nodded. “If he can find one or two details about you, it’ll be just enough to convince you he’s got the gift. He can make up the rest and you’ll eat it up like chocolate pie.”

  I chewed my lip. It sounded exactly like what Raziel had accused Nick’s team of doing when someone bought a ticket to his shows online. Nick hadn’t denied the truth of Raziel’s accusations when I asked him about them, and I didn’t understand why his eyes burned with anger as he explained the way the technique worked to me now.

  At that moment, Fang reappeared from behind the curtains with a flourish and bowed to me as he returned my credit card. I ran my thumb down the raised MACKENZIE CLAIR, wondering what he’d found in those few minutes alone with his search engine.

  He took a seat in the chair across from me, so we flanked Nick, who steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and narrowed his eyes. Fang flicked a glance in Nick’s direction, and Nick nodded as though giving the younger man permission to begin.

  “Your hands, please.” Fang smiled warmly at me. “Palms up.”

  I rested my hands on the table between us, which was tall enough to support my elbows without pitching me forward. Fang stroked my palms again, coaxing my fingers into an open and relaxed state.

  “Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about today?”

  “Not especially,” I lied, not wanting to feed him any more clues about myself than I already had.

  “Hmmm.” He traced the three most obvious lines on my right hand with a fingertip, clucking and tsk’ing as he went. “You’ve had a tumultuous life. Do you see the way your lifeline splits here? It speaks to your roving nature. You’ll call many places ‘home’ over the years.”

  Despite my efforts to control my face, my eyebrow quirked upward. If Nick hadn’t warned me, would the accuracy of Fang’s words have hooked me right there?

  He continued, commenting on the length of my fingers compared to the size of my palms. He pronounced that the break in the ring around my thumb meant that I had multiple families, whether bonded by blood or not. At one point, he covered his mouth with one hand and quickly compared my left palm to my right, then shook his head and smiled at me.

  “Your restless nature could be problematic, but your fate line shows you’ll have great prosperity in your chosen career. A word of caution: don’t forget to lean on the people around you for help when you need it.” After a few more minutes of doling out generic advice and finding compliments hidden in the way the lines on my palms crossed or failed to cross each other, he clasped my hands together with both of his and squeezed them gently. “I hope you found that as enlightening as I did.”

  I was trying to formulate a polite response when Nick made a sound of disgust and slapped Fang’s hands away from mine. Fang’s eyes filled with a sudden fear, and he drew backward.

  “God, you’re pathetic,” Nick snarled. “You don’t even try to hide what you’re really doing.”

  He stood up, and Fang did the same, tripping backward over his own bare feet in his haste to back away from the Nick’s hulking form. But Nick didn’t give him time to escape down the back hallway. He grabbed Fang by the front of his robe and shoved him against the wall with enough force to make the framed photos above them jiggle on their hooks. I sat in stunned silence, my mouth hanging open as I watched Nick’s fury boiling over onto our host. His anger seeped out in every direction, rolling off him in an invisible black cloud that filled the room.

  “I—I—” Fang stammered.

  “Cut the shit, Kevin.” Nick twisted Fang’s—or Kevin’s—robes in his hands, hoisting the younger man off his feet. “You and I both know you’re the fakest guy in town. At least lie with some dignity.”

  “Help!” Fang screamed. “Help me!”

  His shout unfroze me, and I jumped to my feet, shouting, “Nick! Let him go!”

  Neither my voice nor Fang’s did anything to stop Nick from unraveling. He raised one hand to Fang’s throat, squeezing his fingers. Fang gasped, and I ran forward, tugging futilely at Nick’s arm.

  “Stop!” I yelled. “You’ll kill him!”

  The door behind us burst open and Stephen barreled into the room, smashing into Nick with one lowered shoulder and knocking him to the ground.

  “You!” Nick scrambled to his feet, eyes ablaze. He balled his hands into fists but didn’t move toward Stephen.

  “Jesus, Nick!” Stephen moved in front of Fang, panting as he protected the younger man with his body. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “What’s the matter with me? With me?” Nick lifted a shaking hand to point a finger at the rune caster. “You have the balls to ask me that when you’re sleeping with my wife?”

  Stephen paled.

  Triumph lit up Nick’s crimson face. “Didn’t think she’d tell me, huh? Well, you were wrong. See, that’s how strong our connection is. She tells me everything.”

  “Strong?” Stephen said. “Don’t make me laugh. She’s left you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  At that, Nick lunged forward. On pure, insane instinct, I dove between them.

  “Stop!” I shouted, raising my arms at my sides to keep them apart.

  If Nick had been serious about hurting Stephen, I’m sure he could have batted me aside as easily as wafting away incense. But he backed away, the color slowly draining from his face.

  “Get out,” Fang croaked, struggling to his feet. “Before I call the cops.”

  “You’re not serious.” Stephen stared at him. “Call them no matter what.”

  The younger man rubbed his neck with one hand, eyeing Nick. “I’ll keep quiet about this if you make sure I’m part of the show.”

  Stephen shook his head. “I wash my hands of this. Mac, you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Good.” He backed away from Nick and pulled open the door. “You need a ride home or anything?”

  “She’s with me,” Nick growled.

  “No, actually, I’ll walk,” I said.

  He pursed his lips then strode for the door, blowing past me and knocking his shoulder against Stephen’s, growling, “Watch your back.”

  “You watch yours,” the Irishman countered.

  Before he stepped out th
e door, Nick turned his cold eyes on me. “You wanted to know. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “And then he just lost it,” I said.

  Graham and I were having lunch at the new deli on Main Street. The space had previously been home to the best coffee shop in the world but sat empty for months following the owner’s passing. The leafy green murals of forest animals on the walls had been painted over with a clouded honey gold, but the new owner had kept the same square, scrubbed tables that Donn’s Hill gossips had loved to crowd around any time anything interesting happened.

  The informal news network had moved its headquarters to the lobby café at the Oracle Inn, but I had no desire to return to that house. I felt sure Horace would manifest the instant my feet crossed the threshold. Thinking about seeing him again made my stomach twist like a wringing washcloth.

  My second choice would’ve been the Ace of Cups, but I was no more eager to return to The Enclave than the inn. Over deli sandwiches and deliciously salty house-made potato chips, I filled Graham in on Nick’s implosion at the palm reader.

  Graham’s ears darkened to crimson as I described the way Nick had unexpectedly turned violent. He absently crumpled his sandwich wrapper into a tiny ball in one hand. “You could’ve been hurt.”

  “I don’t think he would have done anything to me.” I didn’t have any evidence to back that up, and not even my gut agreed with the words that’d just come out of my mouth.

  Graham’s eyes were doubtful, but he didn’t challenge me. “I never really liked Nick, but I didn’t think he was capable of something like that.”

  “Me neither. It was so weird. He was unrecognizable in that shop.”

  “The palm reader kid isn’t pressing charges?”

  I shook my head. “He didn’t even call the cops.”

  “Weird.”

  Strange as I thought it was to let Nick off the hook on the vague promise of being included in Daphne’s traveling circus, I was relieved not to have to face Deputy Wallace again. Every day that went by without a knock on my door made me feel like I was cheating time. I hadn’t gotten any answers out of Horace, and after Nick’s “lesson” about the dishonesty that ran rampant in Donn’s Hill’s psychic community, I felt no closer to discovering anyone with a stronger motive for killing Raziel than the police thought I had.

  The box is in Graham’s garage. It’d be so easy to take it to Horace.

  The thought snuck up on me, popping into my mind as though from somewhere outside it. The idea of retrieving the jewelry box, handling it and carrying it to the inn, sent a shiver of dread down my entire body. But if I did it… could Horace give me the answers I needed?

  No. No, it wasn’t worth the risk of unleashing whatever was inside that box or exposing myself to Horace again. I’d only go that route if—and hopefully not when—I ran out of options.

  “You okay?” Graham asked, pulling me back into the moment.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “Sorry. What were we talking about?”

  As we finished the rest of my chips and debated whether Nick’s fame would have gotten him out of an assault charge with no jail time, a familiar redhead walked into the deli.

  “Mark!” I waved him over to our table. “What’s up?”

  My cameraman’s default facial expression—a deep scowl—shifted to a guilty cringe at the sight of us. He slowly made his way over to our table and nodded at Graham. He glanced at me then focused his attention on the stack of napkins at the edge of our table. “Hey, Mac. How are you feeling?”

  “Better, thanks. How about you?”

  “Oh… you know…” Mark cast his gaze around the deli. “Keeping busy.”

  “How’d your freelance job go? You were in Moyard the last couple days, right?”

  “Yeah. It was okay.”

  I frowned. Mark was never exactly loquacious, but this was awkward even compared to his normal standards. I stretched my neck, trying to make eye contact with him, but he seemed determined to avoid meeting my eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  His eyes finally flicked up to mine, and he sighed, pulling out the chair beside me and lowering himself into it. After rubbing the back of his neck with one hand for a few silent moments, he dropped his bombshell.

  “I’m leaving the Soul Searchers.”

  “What?” I stared at him, unable to process his words. “Why?”

  “I got an offer to join a documentary film crew that shoots internationally.”

  Silence mounted as I waited for him to add a “just kidding” or to laugh. Eventually, my contact lenses started drying out, and I had to remind myself to blink.

  “You’re serious,” I said.

  He nodded, frowning down at his lap.

  “Uh, congratulations,” Graham said. “When do you start?”

  “Next week. I’m packing up a truck on Sunday and heading out to Los Angeles.” He glanced up at me again. “I’m sorry, Mac.”

  “I—” I fished around for words, but found few. “I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t pass up this chance,” he said. “It’s my dream job.”

  “You said your dream changed when you started working with Yuri. What about helping people? Can you do that on a travel show?”

  “I’ll still get to help people. It’s not a travel doc. It’s more like investigative journalism. We’ll be showing both the good and bad sides of the paranormal community around the world. Real hauntings, but also the kinds of inhumane travesties that happen under the radar.”

  His words were familiar. Too familiar. I knew at once how he’d suddenly found a gig like this.

  “Amari recruited you, didn’t she?”

  Mark’s face flushed. “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “At the cocktail party. She and Raziel both said they wanted to hire me for their show.”

  “That’s why they loaned you that sound equipment—to give you a taste of what working with them would be like.”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Whatever their strategy had been, it’d worked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Inside, my brain screamed that this was sure to spell the end of the Soul Searchers. How dare Mark screw us over? What kind of selfish jerk would do something like this?

  But my memory whispered that it’d been Mark who talked me into joining the crew in the first place. He’d been my friend when I’d been finding dead bodies on every shoot, and he’d never asked for anything in return. His leaving wasn’t selfish, but me trying to keep him from living his dream would be.

  Besides, as long as the show had Kit and Yuri, it would survive. It was their baby. Truth be told, Mark and I were just appendages.

  “I’m happy for you,” I said. “I mean it.”

  He sagged like a marionette who’d just lost its strings. “Thank you.”

  “Kit and Yuri already know?”

  “Yeah, I told them yesterday.”

  “Are you having a going away party or anything?”

  It was a foolish question. Mark wasn’t the type to celebrate anything he did. He’d never invite a bunch of people over to his house for a nightlong, awkward goodbye. The look of horror on his face at the suggestion confirmed it.

  “Well, what time do you leave on Sunday?” I asked.

  “Early. It’s a long drive.”

  “Don’t do it all at once,” Graham warned. “Break it up over a few days.”

  “That’s the plan.” Mark stood and ran a hand through his mop of red curls. “Well, I better go. I’ve got a lot of packing to do.”

  I stood and gave him a tight hug, promising we’d come by on Saturday to say a proper goodbye. He extricated himself, got a sandwich to go, and we followed him out the door on our way home.

  “That’s a bummer,” Graham said as we walked down the residential back streets toward Primrose House.

  It was the understatement of the day. Mark had been one of the first fri
ends I’d made in Donn’s Hill. His presence was part of the fabric of this place. I couldn’t imagine life without him, and I certainly couldn’t picture being on an investigation without seeing his red hair behind the camera.

  “Shirley will be furious,” Graham went on. “Mark’s her favorite nephew.”

  Mark’s great-aunt Shirley was the on again, off again organist at Hillside Chapel atop Main Street. I’d had the pleasure of meeting the little old lady at a séance and the displeasure of being deafened when she’d played the organ at a funeral. Mark seemed to be the only person who could convince her to turn the volume down.

  “The congregants at Hillside will never forgive him for leaving town,” I said.

  We joked and laughed all the way home, parting ways in the back driveway. Graham was driving to Stephen’s place to make sure he was doing okay after the previous night’s altercation. For a moment, I was tempted to join him, just to be in his company a little longer. But it was still too soon. The Enclave had become a sour place in my mind. Instead, I sought out Kit to see how Mark’s departure would affect our production schedule.

  I didn’t have to look far; she was in the shared kitchen, rinsing plates and glasses at the sink. It was a mundane task, but her grim expression and pale face put me on instant alert.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just, uh… you know. Thinking about the future.”

  I settled on a barstool and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. “Mark just gave me the news. Where are we going to find another cameraman?”

  She turned away from me to load the rinsed dishes into the washer. “ScreamTV can help with that. They’ve got a whole network of freelancers and stuff. It’ll be okay.”

  “You’re less upset about this than I expected you to be.” I’d figured the angry voice inside Kit’s head would have beaten her rational, supportive voice to death, and then done the same thing to Mark. She was fiercely protective of her father’s show. Then I realized if Mark was leaving this weekend, Amari would probably head back to L.A. around the same time. Compared to saying goodbye to her girlfriend, losing a cameraman was nothing. “When does Amari leave?”