by L. L. Muir
Before he finished speaking, she laughed loud enough to drown him out. “Don’t you worry,” she said, when she was able to speak again. “You’re doing fine.”
She patted the back of his shoulder with her black lace gloves. They were just a little…dramatic for early in the day, but he wasn’t about to complain.
He gestured toward the front of the building. “Ready to face Rhonda?”
“Sure.”
“Let me know if you get any readings from her, or more from her desk. Whatever you can touch without looking suspicious.”
There was only one problem. Rhonda Thorne, the one staff member who admitted to having no alibi, didn’t show up for work that day, and she wasn’t answering her phone. Fearing foul play, Tripp called for backup and met them at the woman’s house. There was no car in the carport. When Ms. Thorne didn’t answer the door, the neighbor showed up with a key.
Little was disturbed in the living room and kitchen, but in the bedroom, drawers hung open and clothes made a deep pile on the bed.
“Looks like she’s a messy packer,” Mac said. She’d been allowed inside after the coast was clear. “But she’ll be back.”
Tripp watched his sidekick closely, to see if she was teasing him. He moved close and lowered his voice. “You can sense that?”
Those red lips smiled. “Today, I can.”
He’d forgotten M. Muir was ostensibly a fortune teller. He’d even forgotten she’d warned Monica Whittaker her plans put her in danger. He’d been so awe-struck by her ability to help Whittaker’s little girl and read old emotions from furniture, he’d forgotten she had other talents. Of course, she might just be playing an elaborate con on him, but he hadn’t imagined Whittaker finding that stuffed animal where she’d suggested it might be. Or the fact that the little girl had miraculously stopped crying.
The possibility that she might have other “talents” excited him more than anything had in years. Although, it might be other possibilities too…
Mac tried to stay out of the way while the other deputies checked the basement and the rest of the property. Tripp gave the key back to the neighbor and sent her on her way, then drew Mac back inside the house.
“We’re still going to have to hunt Thorne down,” he said. “I can’t expect the D.A. to be patient while we wait for her to come back. In case she’s gone to Whittaker’s, though, I’ll have the sheriff in Boise watch the house.” He turned aside and made that call, then he led Mac back into the bedroom and pointed to the mess on the bed. “Maybe you can, you know, tell where she went.”
Mac looked at the pile of clothes. Lots of fancy stuff. Business stuff. “You want me to discern where she went by what she didn’t pack?”
He frowned, confused, and pointed to the pile again. “You know. Touch her things. See if you can learn something. Read something. Anything.”
“Ohhhh. Right.” Mentally, she kicked herself for forgetting she and Maddy were supposed to be the same person, so she was expected to have her sister’s talents as well as her own.
She picked up the discarded bits, ran her fingers along the hangers where the woman would have pulled them out of the closet en masse. Pretending to concentrate was easy enough. She pretended all the time with her clients. They liked a good show to go along with her insights. But it was still weird doing it in front of a cop. She worried he could see through her.
He frowned again. “Come on. Stop messing around. That neighbor’s going to be pressing her nose to the windows, soon.”
She gave him a dirty look, then turned her back to him. When she thought enough time had passed, she faced him again and tossed the clothes aside. “Same as before. She’ll be back...eventually. Nothing else is coming to me. Maybe she didn’t handle these clothes long enough to imprint on them.”
Deputy Fife seemed disappointed when they locked up and walked back out to his SUV. Their day of sleuthing had fizzled out with no other leads to follow. And while they made their way out of the neighborhood and back toward the center of town, he chewed on his lip like a nervous guy on a first date, like he was trying to think of something to say.
He offered to take her to lunch, but since he wasn’t very cheerful about it, she declined. She resisted the temptation to tell the man that he was acting a lot like her sister, but this was Maddy’s game. When she was ready to tell Barney there were actually two Muir sisters messing with him, she’d do it.
Through the years, though, there had been few who finally got to know the truth. And if Mac’s own visions were to come to pass, hopefully, Barney Fife would be one of them.
Oh, no one got to know the whole truth. Not one person, outside the Muir family, knew why she and Maddy were never seen at the same place at the same time. But Barn might be different. Either way, she knew things were going to change and soon—even if she had to be the one to change them…
15
Mac watched Tripp out of the corner of her eye and tried not to laugh. He kept trying to smile, trying not to be a downer, but failed miserably. Poor guy. Expecting to get a fix of Maddy, he’d been handed a big dose of Mac instead. But she wasn’t going to take it personally—for Maddy’s sake.
They were only a few blocks from the law offices, where her car was parked, when he started watching his mirrors. All pretense of cheer was suddenly gone. He turned before she expected him to, then watched his mirrors again, and she wondered if he was just trying to show her some excitement.
She played along. “Somebody following us?”
“Maybe. Not sure.” He turned again.
She chuckled. “Seriously. Who’s dumb enough to follow a cop?”
He spared her only a quick glance. “Someone willing to kill a prominent business woman?” He checked all mirrors, then looked at her again. “You warned Monica Whittaker that she was in danger.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So, what if she told her killer? What if she laughed it off before she realized you were right?”
“Then the killer would worry that I knew something!”
Mac started to turn, to see who might be following, but he grabbed her forearm. “Don’t look.”
Her heart jumped around in her chest like a high school cheerleader on a trampoline. “Holy crap. What do I do?” Then she thought of Maddy, imagined someone breaking in, finding the mirror room! “We have to get to Dinkville! We have to get to the house!”
He glanced at her again, clearly not understanding.
“Look. I need to get home, now.” She grasped the edge of the dashboard to keep herself under control. “It would be great if you could come along and make sure...I got home safely. Right? Is that asking too much? Maybe you could have an officer follow me. But get me to my car!”
In spite of the fact he was shaking his head, he punched the gas and took her straight to the law offices where her little SUV was waiting. She popped the lock on her seatbelt, but before she could jump out, he grabbed her arm again, more gently this time. “Will you stay here in Spirit Falls tonight? We can put you up in a hotel—”
“No. Impossible. I have to go home, now.”
“Then I’ll follow you. I want you to go slow, though, do you understand? If we’re followed onto the highway, I don’t want things getting crazy. And I don’t want them suspecting we’re on to them.”
She nodded just to get him to let go. “Yes. Thanks. I’ll go as slowly as I can. I just can’t guarantee what that will look like.”
He picked up his radio and put it to his mouth, but she didn’t stick around long enough to listen. She slammed his car door shut and was sitting behind her steering wheel two seconds later. And the second she was on her own, all promises were forgotten. She had to get back to Maddy, to make sure she was okay. Of all the times for that compact to be left on the counter, this was the worst.
Twenty minutes to Dinkville, after I hit the highway! Twenty minutes!
She had to stop at a red light and was relieved that Darro caught up as fast as he did. He shook hi
s head at her, slowly—a warning to go slow. In her own mirrors, she tried to act casual as she took stock of the other cars around her. She couldn’t see past the SUV to see what was behind them. But the thought of the killer being back there brought her some relief—if he was back there, he wasn’t at the house, breaking through locked doors, breaking mirrors. If the killer really had been following them, he wasn’t anywhere near DV. He was here in Spirit Falls. And there was no reason for him to go near Maddy…unless he wanted to lie in wait for her to get home.
She took a deep breath and wished, very intentionally, that Maddy would know she was in danger. But she got no assurance that her sister had felt that warning.
Hootie! She needed Hootie!
The light turned green and she took off with half her attention on the road and half her concentration on one little owl that should be somewhere near the house. In her mind, she saw a broken stalk of wheat. The heavy head hung down and dangled in the breeze. A tiny tawny wing reached up to paw at it.
Today, apparently, their little owl thought he was a cat.
“Hootie! Go to the house. Back to the house, Hootie. I need to see through your eyes, sweetie.”
In response, she heard a strange squawk that actually resembled a meow.
“You’re not a cat, Hootie. I need you to fly. Do you hear me? Fly to the house! Maddy needs you!”
The image of the wheat was gone. Mac flew down Spirit Avenue, toward the on-ramp and her chest lifted. She just hoped she wasn’t imagining it.
16
She chose to ignore a yellow light ahead. Darro’s siren made her jump, but she kept going. After all, he was the one running the red light.
The siren stopped once he caught up to her in the left lane. She risked a glance in the rearview mirror, and saw him ranting, his lights still flashing. No doubt other drivers thought she was an idiot for not pulling over.
She ignored the speedometer. Maybe later, when all the dust settled, he’d believe her when she said she didn’t know how fast she’d been going. The miles inched by while she worried that somewhere, among the cars behind them, the killer might be following. She was leading them right to her house. But if they knew who she was, they could have figured that out on their own. And if it was Rhonda Thorne, she’d been to the house before.
But if Mac was honest, she would bet that Rhonda, the intimidated assistant, hadn’t seemed capable of the menace now hanging over Mac’s head—whether or not she was just imagining that menace.
It was dangerous to cast into the future while she was driving, but she just couldn’t wait another minute. She had to know if Maddy was all right.
She closed one eye and willed the future to come to her. Not too far. Not much. She just wanted to see Maddy’s face in the mirror—an unbroken mirror. But she got nothing.
Her breath came out of her in a whoosh. She’d known better than to try. But she couldn’t just sit there and twiddle her thumbs when she’d been given the power to do more!
Once again, she concentrated on Hootie. This time, she looked at her front yard from the owl’s perch on a horizontal flag pole that hung off the side of one of the porch pillars. There were no strange cars in the circular drive. No cars on the road between the house and the school.
Hootie, bless him, turned his head all the way behind him to the right, then all the way around to the left, giving her a complete view. After a mad flutter of wings, that view lifted over the house and down to the ground, in the backyard. Mac was hoping for another full scan of the surrounding trees and distant fields, but the owlet’s attention caught on a piece of red string flapping in the wind—a deflated red balloon had caught on the fence.
A meow-like squawk was the only warning that Hootie was back in cat-mode.
Five more excruciating minutes crawled by. Her cell phone rang. She fumbled with it, then finally pushed the right button. “Hello?”
“Mac, you need to slow down. There’s a county unit parked at your house, waiting for us. No one’s there. You need to take a breath and slow down.”
“They’re parked there right now?”
“Yes. And they’ll wait for us.”
“Thanks, Barney. You’re my hero.” She hung up the phone and started crying. And just like that—a flood of a little salt and water down her face—and she’d changed her mind completely. As soon as she got home, she and her sister were going to have a nice long talk about shutting down the reading business. No more people in the house. And if they needed to move, they’d move.
The future didn’t have to unfold the way she’d seen it. A little choice—like moving away—could change the course of a river—even if it meant a river of tears for one of them.
17
Tripp was exhausted by the time they reached the old house at the top of the hill. One sheriff’s vehicle and a highway patrol car were parked out front, so he figured it was a slow day for crime in Dinkville. He’d put out a call, asking any officer in the area to get to the house and secure a perimeter.
Mac parked her car in the carport and he parked immediately behind her. She yelled her thanks over her shoulder as she hurried to the front door, fumbling with a heavy wad of keys as she went. He’d expected her to freak out about the possibility of a killer coming after her. But he didn’t see what the rush was to get home. Didn’t she think he could protect her? Being in a police car hadn’t made her feel safe enough?
What was he missing?
He wasn’t going to let her leave him in the dark. She was going to explain, and she was going to do it now. First, though, he had to check with the other officers and send them on their way.
The deputy from Blaine County waited for him by the front door and stuck his hand out. “Aren’t you Darro?”
“I am. I’m glad someone was in the area.”
“I was just leaving Piney’s when you sent the call out.” He nodded off to the right. “Officer Reed got here first.”
Reed had come around the west corner of the house. Tripp thanked him and asked him if he’d seen anything.
“No activity,” the patrolman said. “We checked all around the house. No cars came up the hill other than those that stopped in the school parking lot. In the trees out back, we considered putting a sick little owl out of its misery, but that was it.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. I can take it from here. But keep this place on your patrol patterns for a while, would you? I’m investigating the murder at the lake, and I’m worried the perp might be coming for this woman next.”
Reed laughed. “Not if he’s smart, he won’t.”
That brought Tripp up short. “The danger is real, I assure you.”
“Oh, I’m taking it seriously, and we’ll watch the place, but I would think the Muir sisters are pretty good at defending themselves.”
Tripp’s brain stuttered and stalled. “Sisters?”
“Yeah. You just followed one of them home. She’s got a sister looks just like her. Of course, no one’s seen them both at the same time, so there are all kinds of rumors. But I believe they start those rumors themselves. Kids dare each other to come peek through the windows. Anyone who can get both of them in a picture, wins.”
“You’re serious?”
Reed nodded, then shook his head. “Only no one’s ever won.” He glanced up at the windows. “Crazy stuff happens up here. No one’s been hurt, though, so we leave the sisters alone.”
“Sisters,” Tripp repeated. “I’ll be damned.”
Reed laughed again. “Yeah you will, if you give them a hard time.” He offered a half-hearted salute and headed to his car.
Tripp turned to the deputy. “You work for Lance King?”
“I do. Name’s Kimber. Sheriff’s talked about you often enough. He had a bit of a mystery of his own last year and thought about bringing you in for it. Missing persons. A friend of his.”
“I take it they were found before he needed me.”
“Oh, no. She was never found, but he basically closed the c
ase. Doesn’t like to talk about it. Something…out of the ordinary, if you know what I mean. Kind of put me in mind of these sisters. In fact, they might have been suspects if they’d lived in Blaine County.”
Tripp nodded. “He’ll have to tell me about it one day.”
Kimber tipped his hat back and looked up at the house. “Maybe, by then, you’ll have a story or two to tell him.” After a minute, he tugged his hat down again and hopped off the step. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Tripp turned to stare at the house too and wondered which windows the girls were standing behind, watching him, laughing at him.
“I hope you’ve enjoyed your little game, ladies,” he said quietly. “Because I’m done playing.”
18
They wouldn’t let him in.
He knocked, he called, then he threatened to break through the door if someone didn’t prove that everyone was okay inside the house.
Mac came to the window and lifted the sash. “I’m fine, okay? The place is locked up tight and the security features will keep anyone from breaking in. You can go now, okay? I’ll…talk to you tomorrow.”
“And what about your sister. Is Maddy okay too?”
“She’s fi—” Mac gasped, choked, and slammed the window shut. She never came back.
Maddy was sitting in an overstuffed chair inside the mirror, reading a flower shop murder mystery, when her sister came into the house. At least, she thought it had been her sister. But Mac didn’t usually slam the front door.
She slid a bookmark between the pages, set the book on a side table, then moved to the corner of the reflected room to wait in the shadows. Something was wrong—she could feel it. Wherever Mac was, even if she wasn’t currently running through the house, she was upset, relieved, and nervous all at once.
Someone fumbled with the locks. The jumble of keys made their normal jingling sound. If it wasn’t Mac unlocking the door, someone had gotten hold of the big ring they carried with them at all times.