Love Charms

by Multiple

  “Sorry.” He stepped out of the tub, his exit marked by just the faintest ripple in the water. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I could have cut myself with the razor.” I set the razor in question on the edge of the tub, and finished washing the cream off my legs. Shaving would have to wait and a loud knock at my front door confirmed it. “They’re here? Now?”

  I ran out of the bathroom in search of clothes, leaving Mark to drift behind me. In response to another series of knocks I called, “Hang on. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  In my bedroom, I located the laundry basket and upended the clean clothes I hadn’t had a chance to fold yet onto the bed. I snatched up a pair of underwear, some jeans, and a T-shirt, throwing them on in record time, but I still wasn’t fast enough for whoever was waiting at the door. They knocked again, much harder this time. The doorframe rattled from the force of my ‘customer’s’ pounding.

  “I’m coming.” I grabbed a towel and tousled my hair with it on the way to the front door.

  Releasing the dead bolt, I muttered the magic word that would turn off the wards on the entrance to my apartment and opened the door mid-knock. A man of medium build with sable brown hair and dark gloom-filled pools for eyes stood in my doorway. He wore a smartly cut navy suit that outlined his trim frame—very GQ in a brooding probably-should-be-taking-anti-depressants way. Cute enough that I felt the pull of attraction despite his angsty vibe, a feeling that was quickly replaced by guilt at my reaction. I had no business looking at other men. Not with Mark hovering over my shoulder.

  Lowering his hand, He looked me up and down, eyes widening slightly at my appearance. “You’re Sofia Parker, the psychic?”

  With my sopping hair and rumpled outfit, I admit, I didn’t look the part. My jeans were faded and I’d had the bad luck to grab my rattiest T-shirt out of the pile, the one with a hole in the shoulder. Definitely not how I liked to dress for clients, but, then again, I didn’t want clients and planned on making that very clear to the man standing in front of me. Even so, I flushed at the judgment in his eyes.

  “Yeah, that’s me. You might as well come in.” I spotted my favorite fleece top hanging on the back of a kitchen chair, and, not waiting to see if he accepted my invitation, I grabbed it and yanked over my head. It would be too warm, but at least the hole would be covered.

  Off to my right, Mark laughed. “You should see the look on your face. Like a troll who’s just sucked a moldy lemon.”

  I glared at him and resisted the urge to say something nasty. Talking to Mark in front of other people made me look like a crazy woman. Instead, I addressed my unwanted client who now stood just inside the front door. “Have a seat.” I gestured to my small living room and tried to sound pleasant. I would listen to what he had to say and then refer him to someone else. Someone who liked investigative work and managed to do it without killing people.

  He crossed the living room to sit on my battered leather sofa. Being an antique dealer meant my apartment was filled to capacity with ‘finds’ I hadn’t been able to part with. The sofa had been owned by the Kennedy’s in the 1950s. Across from it sat an oversized armchair covered in red paisley fabric that had once graced the New York Ritz Carlton’s President Suite. It had been used by various rock stars, politicians and even the crown prince of the Sidhe during his state visit in the 1970s. Using the chair as inspiration, I had painted the walls a deep red— I loved deep, strong colors. My collection of vintage Film Noir posters with their dark hued artwork and black frames kept the red from overwhelming the rest of the room.

  An eclectic mix of wood pieces: some Queen Anne, some Shaker, and one water-damaged Chippendale table sat on either side of the sofa and extended along the hallway leading back to my bedroom, shoved together like mismatched puzzle pieces. Truthfully, they were too much for my little apartment, but I had always been a sucker for the patina of aged wood. I loved the faint memories they carried of eras long past — so long as they weren’t my own.

  My uninvited client settled into the sofa, looking a bit surprised at how much it sank under his weight. Old furniture tended to have weak springs. “You knew I was coming?”

  I shut the door and reset the wards before plopping into the faded armchair. “Yes. I’m psychic, remember?” I didn’t mention Mark. It only led to questions I didn’t like to answer. I checked behind me, wondering if Mark was still in the room, only to see empty space. He’d probably fallen through the floor or lost his concentration and dissipated. He’d come back sooner or later. He always did. The only uncertainty was the timing of his appearance.

  The man tilted his head to the side and studied me. “Do you make a point of being in the shower when you know someone is on the way?”

  I ran a hand through my wet hair and tugged at the hem of my fleece top. “I didn’t have that much advance notice.” I flushed again at the critical look he gave me. I might not have been at my best, but I wasn’t a candidate for a paper bag over the head either. With enough notice, I cleaned up pretty well with my long, black hair and toffee eyes. My hourglass figure, while on the wrong side of thin, garnered me more compliments than diet tips.

  “I see. Well, do you at least know why I’m here?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far.” I picked at the frayed piping that traced the outline of the chair, reluctant to get involved.

  He leaned back and crossed his arms in obvious disappointment. “I thought you would already know. I was told you were some big-name psychic.”

  I grimaced at the ‘big-name psychic’ part and the expectations inherent in the moniker. “These things rarely work the way people think they do. I could read you, but it’s much easier if you just tell me. Sometimes I give people headaches.” My clairvoyance required contact, and I didn’t want to get that close to him yet. I was careful to always keep my shields up and use my abilities only when there was no other option—the headaches went both ways. I avoided reading people unless it was absolutely necessary or something somehow slipped beneath my shields.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. It’s better if you just tell me.” I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, glad the chair was big enough with its overstuffed pillows to allow me to do so. Setting my chin on my knees, I looked at my client and watched as he noticed my pedicured feet.

  I liked my feet. My toenails were painted a cheerful red. What I didn’t like was this stranger looking at them, so I moved until my legs were curled underneath me. I didn’t like people who stared. Not since the media started stalking me after Mark died. I’d been dissected in the newspapers, cross-examined in court, and gossiped about everywhere I went for the past year. Scrutiny of any kind made me uncomfortable. Sometimes I thought Mark was the lucky one, no one could see him but me.

  “Okay, then. My name is Jacob Sanders. My twin brother and his family were recently murdered.” He closed his eyes on the last word and a shudder worked through his body.

  “You felt it when he died.”

  He nodded, his hands clenched into fists.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Everyone says that. It doesn’t fix anything.” He opened his eyes and met mine with a hard and angry look.

  “I know.” I held his gaze and let him see the pain I carried. Good thing Mark had left us or else I don’t think I could have prevented myself from crying. It was easier to bury the pain when he wasn’t there reminding me of what I had lost and that it was all my fault.

  “That’s right. I remember reading about you in the paper. Your boyfriend passed away a couple months ago.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t want to talk about it, but Jacob didn’t notice.

  “What was it, a car accident or something?”

  Or something. I had been the driver. The manslaughter charges had just been dropped a few weeks ago. It was my turn to shudder. Hot tears burned my eyelids and I squeezed my eyes shut to keep them contained. I drew in a ragged breath and said, “Let’s talk about
what you want me to do for you. I assume, since you’re here, the police haven’t found the murderer?”

  “There was a gas explosion at my brother’s house, and everything, including his wife and children, went up in flames.”

  “And your brother?”

  “Missing. The police think he killed his family and stole millions of dollars from the bank he worked at.”

  “But you think differently?” I risked opening my eyes and noticed a small chip in the nail polish on one of my big toes. Damn, I had paid extra for the so-called chip-proof formula too.

  “I had a dream the night he died. Someone stabbed him. The gas explosion was just a cover. He was…” Jacob trailed off, a catch in his voice.

  I peeked at him from under my eyelashes as he tried to rub a frown out of his forehead. “I can only imagine how terrible this must be for you, but dreams are not reliable.” The court system barely tolerated testimony from psychics, dreams being admitted as evidence wasn’t going to happen. Not in this lifetime.

  “I know. I’m a lawyer. I’ve read the case history. There’s something else, though.”

  “What?” I looked directly at Jacob now.

  “He was dead before the bank was even robbed. At least, according to what I dreamed.” He took a deep breath. “We had a connection. I could always feel him, like a shadow in the back of my mind. Now I can’t feel anything. I stopped feeling him a day before the bank was robbed.”

  “Which blows holes in the cops’ theory then.”

  Jacob nodded. “Except I have no proof, and they don’t believe me when I tell them he couldn’t have robbed the bank.”

  “So you want me to find the murderer?”

  “Yes, and my brother’s body.”

  “I don’t apprehend criminals.” Or touch dead bodies, I added silently.

  “Could you just read things for me? Tell me if I’m right or wrong. Help me convince the police to consider other suspects. Please.”

  I pulled harder at the frayed piping on the chair and worried my bottom lip trying not to let the pleading note in Jacob’s voice get to me. The extensive media coverage on the car accident never failed to talk up my psychic abilities. Not a day went by where I wasn’t recognized or asked to take a case.

  So far, much to Mark’s disappointment, I had been able to direct people to local non-psychic private detectives. People didn’t always need a psychic and I wouldn’t take cases where simple, mundane investigative work would do the job. As much as I didn’t want the business though, this time I couldn’t say no. Not based on Jacob’s story. There was no way a normal PI could help him. Oh, they would take his money and make a few calls, but that would be it. The honest ones would probably call me and try to hire me anyway. I was one of few freelance psychics in the area, might as well cut out the middleman. Mark had been right, Jacob really did need me. Only I could give a time and cause of death with any certainty. Damn.

  “If it’s money, I can afford to pay you double or even triple your usual rate.” Jacob pulled out a checkbook and a pen from his suit coat pocket.

  I waved a hand dismissing his offer. “No it’s not the money. It’s just that Mark was my partner. He was my back up.” Now he was a wisp of cold air that couldn’t keep from falling into my linen closet.

  “I’ll hire a bodyguard.”

  “That may not be enough. What happened to your brother sounds like a pretty elaborate set up. I don’t know that a normal human could’ve carried it off. I would think at least a dark witch would be involved.” I frowned. The last thing I wanted to do was tangle with a dark witch. With my luck, they would bespell me, and I would become a puppet pulled by magical strings the rest of my life. Good psychics were in demand, and some people—mostly those dealing with black magic—weren’t too ethical about how they acquired the services of a psychic. This was the reason I had my home magically warded, to protect myself from being kidnapped or worse. There were rumors of spells requiring the blood and body parts of psychics.

  “It’s not a dark witch,” a shrill voice said beside me.

  A girl of maybe eight years in age stood next to me, well, floated actually. She was a ghost. Long blond hair swirled past her waist, and her white nightgown billowed in a nonexistent breeze. Mark’s hair was always blowing around too, like he was caught in a perpetual windstorm. The afterlife must have some hell of a weather system.

  “Uh, hello. Who are you?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

  “My name is Darla. I’m his niece.” She pointed to Jacob.

  I turned to look at Jacob who was rubbing his arms at the chill of Darla’s presence. “Who are you talking to?”

  I worried my bottom lip and considered my options. Tell the truth and have Jacob storm out thinking I was a nut, which was fine by me. That would be one way to wiggle out of this case. But it might not eliminate the ghost of his niece, who would probably hound me until I helped discover the truth of her family’s death. I didn’t know a lot about ghosts; the last known psychic who was able to act as a medium between this world and the next had been dead for over a century and she hadn’t left behind an instruction manual.

  Still, since Mark showed no signs of moving on, I didn’t hold out any hope Darla would leave me in peace. If I was going to get sucked into this one way or the other, I might as well get paid for my time. How bad could it be? Everyone was already dead, there would be no rush to save anyone, just gather information and report it to the police. Simple and nothing like last time.

  Or so I told myself. Denial has its uses.

  Irate at my long silence, Jacob stood and walked to the door. “I can see this is a waste of time. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “Don’t let him leave,” Darla shrieked, fluttering from the floor to the ceiling in distress.

  “Wait,” I followed him and put a hand on his arm. “I’ll help you, if you’ll have me.”

  He paused, hand on the door knob. Looking back at me, he said, “What do you mean by that? I want your help.”

  “You might not after you hear what I have to say. Why don’t we sit down at the kitchen table? I’ll make us some tea.” My mother had always broken bad news over tea, although she never topped it off with rum like I did—an addition I made after her funeral some five years ago. I walked into the kitchen, the bright yellow walls making the late summer dusk streaming in through the tiny window above the sink look cheerful. Jacob trailed behind me, frowning in what I decided was annoyance.

  A now calm Darla clapped her hands together and smiled. “I love tea parties.” I rolled my eyes and hoped she knew she couldn’t eat or drink anymore.

  “All right. Tea sounds good. You have one heck of a draft in here.” He went to sit at the ancient pine table I’d bought at a farm sale several years ago while I filled the teakettle with water.

  “The draft is what we have to talk about.” I set the kettle on the stove and turned the burner on high. “Jacob, do you believe in ghosts?”

  He shrugged. “Believe in ghosts? I guess so. I mean, there’s witches, vampires, pixies, and elves, why not ghosts? Just because we haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We learned that lesson when the elves popped up in the fifties.”

  “Good, because your niece Darla is here.” I filled a tray with tea, honey, two mugs, and some spoons. I left the rum behind since there wasn’t enough for both of us. I’d been adding a lot of rum to my tea lately. The bottles didn’t last as long as they used to.

  Jacob stood so fast the chair fell behind him. “Darla? Are you here, honey?” He waved his arms around trying to feel for her.

  I set the tray on the table. “Jacob, calm down. She’s here, but you can’t see her.”

  Eyes desperate with grief met mine. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just the way it works.”

  Jacob picked the chair up off the floor. “What is she saying?” Jacob asked ensconced once again in his chair.

  “Nothing righ
t now, but she told me the killer wasn’t a dark witch.” I checked on the kettle, which began to whistle. I turned off the burner, grabbed the kettle with a potholder, and returned to sit across from Jacob. Darla had seated herself next to her uncle and watched as I poured the water and dispensed the tea.

  “Where is she?”

  I nodded in the general direction of Darla. “She’s right next to you.”

  Jacob put out a hand and gingerly poked at the air next to him. His hand went through Darla’s body up to the elbow.

  Darla grimaced. “Stop it. Make him stop.”

  “She doesn’t like that,” I said. “Ghosts don’t like going through us anymore than we do.”

  Jacob withdrew his hand and wrapped it around his steaming mug. “Damn, that’s cold.”

  “He said a bad word,” Darla said.

  “I know. He didn’t mean it.” I squeezed some honey into my mug.

  “What? I didn’t mean what?” Jacob frowned at me, confused.

  “You swore.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.”

  “Hey, I don’t have any tea.” Darla, with the typical short attention span of a child, had already moved on to something else.

  I stopped stirring my tea and looked at her. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  “I want tea.” She tried to slap a hand on the table, but it went straight through the wood.

  “It’s hot. You don’t seem to like hot things,” I said.

  “I want tea,” she yelled and began to chant with escalating volume, “Tea. Tea. Tea. Tea.”

  I winced. Darla had probably been a spoiled child with a hundred Barbies and far too few spankings. I felt bad thinking that way, considering she was dead, but brats apparently don’t change in the afterlife.

  “What is it?” Jacob asked.

  “She’s upset.” I sighed and went to the kitchen to get another mug, which I set down on the table with more force than necessary. Taking a new tea bag from the box, I ripped the paper off, dropped the bag in the mug, poured the water, and pushed the mug over to her.