a Touch of Ice

by L. j. Charles

  A martini was definitely in my future, ten o’clock in the morning or not.

  “And your understanding is that the murders have happened.” Her face was smooth, not a trace of expression. The woman was the consummate psychiatrist. Could probably win awards for not leading the witness.

  “Yes. CNN has confirmed all three of my visions. Usually within a week or two after the snowstorm.” I crossed my legs and my skin prickled against the denim fabric of my blue jeans.

  Silence. She was definitely one of those therapists who don’t talk. A real pain in the butt, that. I was here for help. Maybe a question would trick her into offering an opinion—or something, anything other than silence. “What’s the matter with me?”

  “Is there something the matter with you?”

  I slid to the front of the chair, levered my elbows on my knees and glared. “What do you think? How normal is it to have visions of murders while they happen? And connected to the last snowstorm of spring? It’s loony. I want it to stop. I’m here so you can make it stop.”

  How dense could the woman be?

  She inclined her head again. Big help.

  “In May. When it’s time for the snow thing to happen. I get obsessed with the weather station. Listen every few hours. It’s. Not. Normal.”

  I slid back in my chair and folded my hands in my lap. Capable hands, strong fingers, short nails without polish. I come from Haitian ancestry. Latte skin, black spiral curls, black eyes, full lips, curvy body, and totally out of place around the Scandinavian population of Minot, North Dakota. I stand out. Probably look crazy just on general principle. Dr. Cautell was doing her best. It wasn’t her fault I’d been born to black beans and fried plantains rather than lutefisk and krumkake. No wonder she didn’t know what to do with me.

  “And this last dream?”

  “Vision. Dreams are a whole different thing. I think the reason the visions happen when I’m asleep is that my guard is down. Anyway, this year’s vision hasn’t happened yet. They’re predicting snow in forty-eight hours. I. Need. Help. Now.”

  She tapped her pen on the pad in front of her and caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Definitely not a confidence builder.

  “I can prescribe a sleeping medication, but no one can keep you from dreaming.”

  She couldn’t seem to get off the dreaming kick. I rolled my eyes. Not very adult, but there you go. “Of course not. This is a curse. I’d make an appointment with the local witchdoctor but they’re all in Haiti. At least the ones connected to my family.”

  “You have a practicing witchdoctor in your family?” She reached for a bright red coffee mug, gripped it with white fingers.

  Damn, I hate when people don’t get my humor.

  “Not that I know of. I’ve never been there and neither have my parents. Papa is an accountant and Maman is a baker. Fancy wedding cakes. Wins prizes.”

  She set the mug down, placing it just so on her desk. “I recommend you take a short vacation. Visit your family.”

  “My family lives in New York. It snows there.”

  She reached for her prescription pad. “Take one of these every night for the next month. We can continue with this discussion at your next appointment.”

  I nodded, stood, tucked my handbag under my arm, accepted the proffered slip of paper, and glanced at it with professional curiosity. Exactly what I would have prescribed for myself if I thought there was a chance in hell it would help. A sleeping pill wasn’t the answer. I stuffed the script in my pocket and tried to think of something to say, but came up blank. I’d already told her everything that mattered.

  I stepped out of her office and the wind whipped around me, sharp and ominous as I unlocked my car and slid behind the wheel. When I started the engine, the bouncy notes of the weatherman’s prediction blasted into the silence. “A cold front is moving in from the north, bringing cooler temperatures and an eighty percent chance of precipitation.”

  I flicked the radio off. There was something wrong about a perfectly modulated, cheerful voice predicting the end of someone’s life—even if he didn’t know it. Even if no one knew it but me. I’m apparently a wuss and subject to the whims of impossible demons who’ve made it their mission to curse my life. I needed to find some kind of cure in the next few hours.

  I wandered around the house and thought about working, even opened my laptop. No deal. The blank TV screen stared at me, dared me to turn it on. I grabbed the remote. Sure enough, cheery weather guy pointed to the low-pressure area hovering overhead. I glanced out the window at the clouds moving in—threatening as all hell with their fake, white, billowy innocence.

  He’s gonna kill. He’s gonna kill. He’s gonna kill. The ugly, little mantra chanted in the back of my mind like a song that wouldn’t quit. It interfered with rational thought and was insistent enough to get me pacing. Maybe the storm would blow over. My skin crawled, my right eye twitched, and the weatherman blathered on about the low-pressure area.

  Not what I wanted to hear. I clicked the TV off, tossed the remote on a chair, and faced the pile of work sitting on my desk. Sheer determination had me plowing through the case I was working on, and several hours later my report was complete and emailed to my client. I have a doctorate in nursing (the management part, not the patient care part) and decipher medical charts for attorneys and insurance companies—whoever has a pesky medical question that needs to be answered.

  I stood and stretched, flicked the curtain back and looked out the window. No snow. I sent up a quick prayer to the gods, goddesses, and non-existent family witchdoctor that it stay that way.

  I wasn’t hungry so I made myself a martini with precisely seven bleu-cheese olives. I have a weakness for green olives when they’re steeped in the essence of a good martini. And if I do say so, I make an excellent martini. Then I tumbled into bed and drifted into a restless sleep.

  I’d made the decision to keep the weather channel humming in the background because I figured if they said anything about snow, it would wake me up.

  Wrong.

  Several hours later, I shuddered awake from a deep sleep. Sweat beaded on my upper lip and forehead. I grabbed for the bottle of water sitting next to the bed, downed it in single gulp. I closed my eyes and let my attention zero-in on the horror of the vision that woke me.

  Damn it.

  I stumbled out of bed and jerked the blinds open. No snow.

  This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t my normal vision of a murder. Oh, no. Nothing normal like that. This was the killer all right, but he was doing prep work. Who knew killers did prep work? Not me. At least not until a few minutes ago. This murder was going to be a stabbing. I let the images run through my mind again, watched him fondle the knife as I looked for a clue. Something, anything that would help someone in authority catch the guy. Hopefully, stop him before he could carry out his plan. I watched him run his finger along the edge of the knife. Felt his anticipation. And even worse, I could smell the sour dampness emanating from his body.

  No way could I stay here and wait for it to snow, not with this new kind of vision taking over my crazy, mixed-up, and obviously very sick mind. My skin was clammy, my stomach had knots the size of Texas and the weather guy had upped his prediction of snow from an eighty to ninety percent chance within a few hours. How many hours was anyone’s guess.

  The clock read three a.m. There are three flights in and out of Minot every day, and all of them go to Minneapolis. Good to know when you’re hell-bent on making an escape. The first one left before dawn, and that suited me just fine. I got online, paid my fare, and selected a seat. It’d be easier to decide on my final destination when I got to Minneapolis and had time to peruse the options. As it was, I only had a scant half hour to get to the airport. I called a cab, walked through the shower, pulled on some jeans and a long-sleeved white tee, tossed my toothbrush, mouthwash and makeup in a zip lock bag, stuffed the baggie and a pair of pink thongs in my handbag, grabbed a sweater, my cell
and computer, and locked the door behind me just as the cab pulled up—an oversized white van.

  The driver jumped out, got the door for me. “Goin’ to the airport, Cookie?”

  Cookie? Where did this guy come from? Could have been anywhere. Gray hair, gray eyes, pale skin, beer belly. Normal. A perfectly normal cab driver. No reason to panic.

  “Yep. The airport it is.”

  The wind kicked up, tossed my chin-length spiral curls around and tore at the edges of my sweater. A chill raced down my spine and I quickly slid into the van.

  Death and wind in Minot.

  Both unavoidable.

  I kept my nose to the window and watched for any change in the weather. I shuddered with cold and wiped at the condensation on the glass. The glow from the streetlamps wasn’t picking up any sparkly, white flakes.

  “How’d ya come to be in Minot? Lookin’ like you do, you can’t be from around here. Betcha it was the Air Force.”

  Of all mornings, this one came with a talkative cab driver.

  “You got it. I followed the wrong man from the Stewart base in New York, and ended up tossing him but keeping my house.”

  He wrinkled his forehead and caught a quick glance at me in the rearview mirror. “Most people would’ve moved back to New York.”

  Four in the morning was not the time to be discussing my failures in life, especially those involving an intimate relationship with the wrong man that still left a raw spot in my heart five long years later. Guess it was time to get over it and move on.

  Just not right this minute.

  I had to give the cabbie credit, though. It only took him about two minutes to uncover the bad juju in my love life. I’m betting it will take Dr. Cautell longer to home in on whatever is hidden underneath the visions—if I make another appointment. Maybe, with luck, this whole vision curse thing can be solved with a short vacation every spring—no need for a psychiatrist to poke and probe into my psyche.

  I crossed my fingers.

  On both hands.

  The rest of the trip to the airport was uneventful. Well, considering we picked up a family of five on Sixteenth Street. Two kids, elementary school age, both hyperactive. One sullen, pierced, gothic teenager of indeterminate gender and a couple of harried parents. It was enough to insure the meticulous use of condoms—if I ever had sex again. Their odd normalcy made a sharp contrast to the vision that woke me and grated against my already raw nerves.

  I fled the cab, leaving the driver with a wave and a big tip, wrapped my sweater tight to my body, and fought the wind as it sliced through my clothes and tugged at my bag.

  The first snowflake melted against my hand as I jogged across the street.

  Also by L. j. Charles

  The Gemini Women Trilogy

  The CALLING

  An excerpt

  One

  The sultry song of the bayou played with my mind and left equal measures of icy panic and hot pleasure in its wake. I wove through shadows and listened to the plants breathe while I kept an eye on the Pitre brothers’ cabin. The scent of moist earth, lush vegetation, and yesterday’s garbage lingered in the air. Made my nose itch.

  Snatches of the brothers’ discussion drifted through the trees and crackles of electricity flickered under my skin. Tonight was it. Finally. The information needed to incarcerate them for the rest of their natural lives was recorded for posterity and the sheriff’s department. Now, if they blathered on just a bit longer—Crack. Damn! I swept a glance down to the broken limb beneath my boot, and my stomach lurched. The brothers’ conversation had stopped cold. I held my breath and froze, pressing the heels of my hands against trembling quads.

  An eternity and the mother of all muscle cramps later, the Pitres got on with their chat. I eased from my crouch and edged closer to the window, praying not to step on any more buried branches.

  Perfect. They were sniping at each other about whether they should move Avril’s body, what they were going to do with the money they stole from beneath her floorboards, and the best place to relocate so as not to get caught. Their voices floated on the air and blended into the quiet of the night, but were distinct enough that I didn’t miss a thing. And neither did my recorder.

  I’d been chasing the brothers for eight nights running. Ever since Avril Dupré’s very demanding voice took up residence in my head, I’d spent my evenings slinking through the Bayou, trying to gather proof of her murder. I couldn’t argue with her ghostly contention that they buried her not ten feet from where I stood. The brothers had angled an old wooden picnic table to cover the freshly turned earth. Hardly a fitting gravestone for Avril Dupré—at least not according to her.

  The conversation in the cabin stopped, replaced with the sound of silverware scraping against tin plates. I was done here. I backed away, stopping briefly behind a renegade banana plant to tuck the recorder in my pocket, and then faded into the trees.

  Avril objected to my retreat, as she wanted me to dig her up and move her remains to consecrated ground. And she intended on chattering in my head until I remedied the situation. The amazing thing? This is absolutely normal. Has been ever since I celebrated my thirty-fifth birthday thirty days, seven hours and sixteen minutes ago. I rolled the diamond stud gracing my left earlobe between my index finger and thumb. I wasn’t used to it yet, Grandmamma’s engagement diamond. A birthday gift to celebrate my coming into the calling.

  She made a ceremony of adding a second piercing to my lobe, and then placing the sparkling gemstone just so while she explained its meaning—a symbol of courage that intensifies the qualities of the wearer. Positive and negative. My guess is she added that last part to keep me on the right side of the universe. What with murder victims prattling on about exactly how they wanted me to rectify the circumstances surrounding their deaths, I was prone to fudge the law when necessary. A muscle ticked in my jaw. As a former police detective, it didn’t come easy, solving crimes without benefit of proper procedure.

  I rubbed the faceted surface of the stone. Courage. That’d be good. I was learning to cope with the dead—hearing their voices, separating their thoughts from mine, and blocking their emotions, but not as well as I’d like.

  When I was about fifty feet from the cabin, I stretched into a full-out run and hoped the movement would quiet Avril down some. I shook my head, pressed my fingers into my temples. Grandmamma Boulay didn’t have any sage advice about how to silence the dead once they started telling me the particulars of their homicides. I was still miffed that her only suggestion was, “Do what they say, child. Just do what they say.”

  I jumped in my car, eased onto the road, then gunned the engine and zipped toward her house—where I’d been staying for over a month. Avril nagged me every minute of the half hour trip, and I turned up the radio hoping to drown her out. No luck. I’d had enough by the time I pulled into the driveway.

  Grandmamma waited on the porch, the clicking of her knitting needles keeping time with her rocking chair. The spicy smell of a traditional Monday supper, red beans and rice, chased away the musky scent of the Bayou and had my stomach rumbling.

  I bent to kiss her papery cheek, inhaling the peppery aroma clinging to her apron and the sweetness of baby powder that surrounded her in a fragrant halo. I dropped to the top step of the stoop. “The Pitre brothers killed Avril.”

  “Yes, ‘n tha’s what she’s a’ been sayin’ to you.”

  “She has, yes. And continues to nag me on the subject.” I pulled the elastic out of my hair and shook my ponytail loose. “Tomorrow I’ll post a note to the sheriff telling him where to dig, send the recording of the Pitres’ discussion about the murder and the money they stole from under her floorboards.”

  “Avril will stop talking then, ché.”

  “If she’s like the first three, she will." I ran my hands through my hair and tried to massage Avril’s voice out of my head.

  “Grandmamma?”

  “What’s a’troublin’ you, Whitney, child?”


  “Why is this my calling? Why couldn’t it be, oh, shape shifting? Something more interesting.”

  “Oooh, now. We haven’t had a shape shifter for as far back as forever. Don’t know as I’ve ever heard of one ‘cept as legends. Why you askin’ ‘bout that, child?”

  I rolled my shoulders to ease the cramped muscles that came whenever I thought about the calling. And about what Nia—a woman I’d met and grown sister-close to during one of my Honolulu Police Department cases—had recently experienced. “Nia mentioned something about it when we…last month.”

  The rocking chair came to an abrupt stop. “You told her? About the calling and this being your thirty-fifth birthday?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “It’s the way of the women in our family and naught to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just a damn nuisance.”

  Grandmamma tsked. “Language, child. Be’in schooled in England is’n no excuse.”

  “Um. No, rather a lot of other things, but no excuse.”

  I stretched across the wooden porch to pat her bare feet, warm and rough with calluses. “Nia had enough to think about what with saving her parents’ lives and falling in love—”

  “She’s stayin’ in your home with your friend, the attorney, yes?”

  “Trace Coburn. They’ll be at my place to oversee the work on his condo. When it’s finished they’ll be dividing their time between here and Minot, North Dakota of all places.” A jolt of pain pierced the back of my skull as Avril decided to give me a piece of her mind. I gave my head a hard shake hoping to dislodge her.

  “Avril’s talking at you?”

  “She is.” The bottle of Aleve sitting on the bathroom counter called to me.

  “Grandmamma?”

  “Um-hmm. What is it, ché?”

  “About my calling. Why isn’t it clairvoyance like you, or seeing mathematical patterns like mum?”

  She tsked again. “Full of questions tonight, you are. Not always comfortable, clairvoyance. Oh, not like your discomfort with dead people talking at you, but it’s not an easy thing to see the future. Especially the bad things. Your mama had an easier time of it. Took to working for that government think tank like alligators take to marshmallows.”